Be sure to check out the op-ed by retired Milwaukee Area Technical College instructor and former Local 212 Executive Vice-President Charlie Dee that lays out why the secretive plan to merge the Wisconsin Technical College System and the UW Colleges would be a disaster: "The first thing a responsible committee would do is research what happened when other states tried this. It would discover that mergers in Minnesota, Georgia, Alaska, Connecticut and New Jersey have failed to produced expected savings, but instead have created myriad problems."

When Scott Walker compared 100,000 peaceful protestors - teachers, parents, police officers, fire fighters, students, nurses, and more - to the terrorists in ISIS, it hit home for William Schuth, a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and a member of AFT local 3220, the UW-Madison Teaching Assistants' Association.  William has created a petition calling on Walker to apologize for his remarks: "Gov. Walker, veterans and service members who risked their lives to fight terrorism deserve better than that. Americans who speak up for their rights deserve better than that. Please, Gov. Walker, show some courage: publicly take ownership of your disrespectful comments and apologize."

So-called "right to work" legislation meant to attack private sector union workers is being fast-tracked through the Wisconsin Legislature this week. Our sisters and brothers in the private sector stood shoulder to shoulder with us when Scott Walker attacked us in 2011; now it's our turn to show that we remain united. Here are five things you can do to take action:

We work in the public sector because we care. We care about our community. We care about our neighbors, our families, and - we care about each other. And speaking with one voice is always more powerful than speaking alone. We organize as a union because we can then gain the strength to make real change. Together, we speak with one voice that no one can shake  —  and we'll be louder than our bosses, our elected officials, and those anti-government folks.