Madison: Over 700 participants held a demonstration outside of the inauguration of Governor Scott Walker to demand that he be held fully accountable for creating family sustaining jobs. Walker promised to create 250,000 jobs during the campaign but has thus far offered no policy prescriptions capable of achieving this result. Participants waived signs reading “We Need Good Jobs Now” and listened to a group of unemployed workers and ministers discuss the desperate need for high quality jobs.
Such a mobilization of popular discontent at the inauguration of a new governor is unprecedented in recent Wisconsin political history.
Co-sponsors of the events include the Good Jobs and Livable Neighborhoods Project of Citizen Action of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Inner-City Congregations Allied for Hope (MICAH), League of Young Voters, Voces de la Frontera, and the Milwaukee Area Labor Council (AFL-CIO).
Speakers at the event included Reverend Willie Brisco (President of MICAH); Sheila Cochran (Secretary Treasurer, Milwaukee Area Labor Council), Jennifer Epps (unemployed worker), Primitivo Torres (Voces de la Frontera), Roderick Caesar (unemployed worker), Reverend Leondis Fuller, and Brenda Giles (unemployed worker).
“Today isn’t about Scott Walker, it’s about the people standing up to say we need good jobs now,” said Roderick Caesar, an unemployed worker from Milwaukee who spoke at the event. “I’m college educated and I want a job so that I can support my family.”
Video interviews of Milwaukee area unemployed workers are now available at http://milwaukeejobsnow.org/
