Wisconsin’s Republicans have succeeded in stripping state employees of collective bargaining rights and imposing other stringent requirements on public employee unions.

So what’s next?

Was this Pearl Harbor for America’s beleaguered labor movement, a sneak attack that will energize the working class? Or was Wisconsin the right-wing juggernaut’s version of Poland, the first victim of blitzkrieg?

Using a deft (albeit possibly illegal) maneuver last week, Wisconsin’s Senate Republicans passed GOP Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-union bill, dropping any pretense that it was a deficit-reducing effort.

Richard Trumka, president of the national AFL-CIO, chortled that the union organization should give Walker its “Mobilizer of the Year” award. The Wisconsin showdown has energized labor unions, both in the public and private sectors, Trumka said.

The monthlong battle over Walker’s bill, featuring daily rallies at the capitol by union workers and sympathizers, has focused public attention on efforts by conservative political groups to undermine the economic condition of the middle class, Trumka told people assembled at a jobs rally in Washington on Thursday.

Polls taken during the Wisconsin debate have shown strong support, even among independent voters, for collective bargaining rights — even for public-sector unions. The polls show strong opposition to cutting public employees’ pay to balance budgets.

But the labor movement, particularly the AFL-CIO unions, no longer is the potent force it once was. Unions will have to remember how to hustle if they are to press whatever advantage Walker has given them.

And then there’s this: The Wisconsin bill eliminates two key labor weapons: automatic dues checkoff and automatic union recertification. If that pattern spreads, labor will be fighting with its hands tied behind its back.

Unions helped create America’s middle class. Their decline over the last three decades precisely parallels the huge decline in the percentage of financial wealth held by the middle class. Redressing that is going to require a very long war. Wisconsin was only the first battle.