The video shows IVAW organizing team leader, Aaron Hughes, delivering a speech on the University of Wisconsin campus preceding a larger rally and march to the capitol building. Hughes’ message gave me hope that a true movement for global social justice was possible. He discusses the successes of Iraqi oil and electrical workers in occupying their workplaces and demanding change in their working conditions.

He also articulates an important critique that has been somewhat lost in the larger discussion of Madison. If this Wisconsin movement is truly about solidarity, we must take responsibility for the ways our first-world nation contributes to the oppression of workers in other countries. This discussion of labor rights has to go beyond a conversation of domestic public versus private employees, and we absolutely cannot forget how all workers in our country and globally are a part of this struggle- that we are one, and this is about human rights.