Those Busts on La Hacienda Picket Line

By now everybody knows that two picketers were busted at La Hacienda restaurant on September 15. It’s worth talking about what happened and what it means for building a more militant labor movement here in Madison.

Here’s what went down. We had been picketing all day. The boycott was working. Very few people went in the restaurant and we got a lot of support from passers-by. The armed private security guard hassled us some, but there were no incidents.

Then Patrick arrived about 2 p.m., from leafletting at another site. The rent-a-cop immediately got on the phone and soon the parking lot was full of Madison city police cars. The city cops gathered around as the private cop pointed and gestured toward the picket line. Two city cops broke from the huddle and came toward us.

“You, come here!” the tall one yelled, pointing at Patrick. Patrick walked up to the edge of the parking lot and told the cops that he was told he’d be arrested if he set foot across the line.

At that point the tall one went berserk. “Shut up and get your ass over here!” he shouted. He lunged and grabbed Patrick and two city cops shoved him over the nearest police car and handcuffed his hands behind his back. While getting roughed up, Patrick dropped his water bottle. The tall cop angrily kicked it across the parking lot.

The picketers were shocked but composed. We began chanting “Shame, shame” and “Madison is watching.” Those with cameras started taking pictures.

A few minutes later the cops grabbed another man who had been leafletting the back entrance. Both were cited for blocking sidewalks and released.

Now, you can learn what to expect from the police during a labor dispute from reading Fredrick Engels or, if you’re not the bookish type, by walking a few picket lines.

The rent-a-cop was obviously waiting for Patrick, who is perceived as the leader and instigator of the boycott. When Patrick arrived he called the city cops and told them who to arrest. The city cops had just arrived, so they hadn’t seen anything first hand. They just followed the hired cop’s instructions.

We here in everybody’s-liberal-and-middleclass Madison get lulled into thinking our cops are different from those vicious, club-wielding thugs we see in news clips from other cities or Third World countries. Our cops are polite. They hand out sports cards to the kids.

But, ask anyone who’s spent much time on a picket line in Madison and they’ll report the true nature of Madison’s Finest. At bottom, they’re like cops everywhere. They’re just doing their job. It just so happens that their job is to defend the interests of the employing class.

The chain of command is usually more obscured than it was in that parking lot at La Hacienda, where the employer hires a private cop, who tells the city cops what to do to the picketers. But we should have no illusions about how it works. And, if we intend to do any effective picketing, we should proceed accordingly.

One final note: Both men took their arrests with dignity, and the people on the picket line responded with courage and resolve. I’d walk a picket line with any of them.