There’s been a lot of talk today of how there should be a general strike to support the public unions of Wisconsin. I was raised in a union family, my father worked at the telephone company and was a member of the C.W.A. (Communications Workers of America). I’ve been a member of two unions myself, first the UFCW (I worked in a grocery store as a teen) and later I was briefly a member of IATSE in my early twenties.  None of this, of course, qualifies me to be able to offer meaningful advice on what the unions should do next, and I wouldn’t deign to try, but last night as I watched the live feed from the Wisconsin capitol building (which I was glued to for hours last night, I couldn’t take my eyes off it) I listened to the words a gentleman who did have some sage advice to offer.

I don’t know who he was, but when the interviewer asked him if he had plans to sleep in the capital that night, he said that he was thinking about it, but that he had to get up really early to do TV and radio interviews. He was super articulate and knew the history of the labor movement in America, cold. He could cite facts, figures, dates, court cases, going back over 100 years. He was an expert’s expert on the topic. Again, I have no idea who he was, but his intelligence was very impressive to me, his calm was comforting, and his logic compelling. He was probably a spokesperson for one of the unions, but until I see his face again, that’s all I can say. He had brown hair and a mustache and was in his mid-50s.

The gist of what he said, though, was that a general strike NOW was probably a very bad strategic move, at least at this still beginning stage of the game. His reasoning was as follows:

1) It was too early to be threatening a general strike because once it had occurred, if the Republicans didn’t budge—and since Walker sees himself as Reagan Jr. that seems likely as shit—the unions will have played their big card. General strikes have been historically difficult to maintain in America. He said he didn’t expect that the fight had dug in hard enough to keep it going. Yet.

He felt it was better to ratchet it up slowly, keep applying the same sorts of pressure that the crowds had been applying throughout the conflict with Republicans, begin the recall efforts targeting the weakest GOP members of the state assembly immediately and to not let anger cause any unpleasant media images that would be to the Republican advantage in a propaganda war.

2) His second reason was that the endgame of this entire episode is much more likely to be decided in a courtroom than via any other method.

Food for thought. I’m not saying he’s right, but before I heard the man speak I’d have been hellbent on seeing a general strike. And he didn’t say it was a bad idea or that a general strike wouldn’t wouldn’t ultimately be necessary, but that it wasn’t necessary YET. 

Above all he advocated keeping cool heads and he’s absolutely right about that.