Labor & Employment Law

Farmers Launch Tractorcade in Solidarity with Wis. Public Employees

By James Parks

This tractorcade in 2007 is just a small example of the mass statewide tractorcade protest this weekend in Madison, Wis.

This weekend, thousands of Wisconsin farmers will not be working in the fields or milking cows. They will be driving their tractors in a mass tractorcade in support of public employees at the state Capital in Madison. Three statewide farm organizations are organizing the tractorcade March 12 to protest Gov. Scott Walker?s state budget and proposal to end collective bargaining rights for state employees.

Rural communities will be disproportionately hurt by Walker?s proposed budget, and farmers in Wisconsin want to send a message that they stand with state workers and all working and middle-class families in the state.

If you have a tractor and would like to join in the tractorcade, please contact John Peck at Family Farm Defenders  at 608-260-0900 or send an e-mail to FamilyFarmDefenders@yahoo.com. Family Farm Defenders is sponsoring the tractorcade along with Wisconsin Farmers Union and Land Stewardship project.

Joel Greeno will be there. He is a dairy farmer and vice president of Family Farm Defenders. Greeno and other family farmers throughout the state say the bill will not only affect state employees, it also will hurt them. 

Greeno told Beth Borzone of the Colesville (Wis.) Patch that dairy co-ops might be the next target if Walker can destroy public employees? rights.

Collective bargaining rights are the principles that all of our co-ops operate on. And if they start eroding collective bargaining rights for workers, farmers in co-ops are just next on the chopping block, so if we don?t stand together and defend our rights, we all are going to take cuts in turn.

John Peck, executive director of Family Farm Defenders, tells Borzone that farm income will decline if public employees lose the ability to bargain for decent wages.

Consumers won?t be able to have as much money if their wages are cut. The recession is bad enough already. Why make it worse by taking away what few benefits and living wages that people do have thanks to the labor unions? It doesn?t make much sense. 

?Everybody deserves a living wage, not just a few people,? Peck says.

Farmers understand that because they are always at the bottom of the pile. I think that?s why they can empathize with the workers. It?s just not fair.  It?s a human rights issue.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on March 07, 2011 (boomark / email).