In 2011, a Republican majority in the Wisconsin State House faced massive protests to their plans to strip power from public sector workers. State Democrats fled across the border and the possibility of a general strike loomed. 

But the strike fizzled out and the legislation ultimately passed. 

And now the situation in the federal government is shaping up in a similar way. Do the workers need to break the glass and do what Wisconsin stopped short of?

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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, Ethan Oberman, and Rob Gunther.

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