Wisconsin 2023-2024 Regular Session

Wisconsin Assembly Bill AR8 Compare Versions

Only one version of the bill is available at this time.

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3	3	2023 - 2024 LEGISLATURE
4	4	2023 ASSEMBLY RESOLUTIO N 8
5	5	April 28, 2023 - Introduced by Representatives SINICKI, CLANCY, C. ANDERSON, J.
6	6	ANDERSON, ANDRACA, CABRERA, CONLEY, DRAKE, BALDEH, EMERSON, JOERS,
7	7	MADISON, MOORE OMOKUNDE, SHELTON, SUBECK, SHANKLAND and ORTIZ-VELEZ.
8	8	Referred to Committee on Rules.
9	9	*AUTHORS SUBJECT TO CHANGE*
10	10	Relating to: commemorating the date of the Bay View labor strike and tragedy and
11	11	requiring the permanent removal of the portrait of Jeremiah Rusk from public
12	12	display in the assembly parlor and instead requiring that a portrait of former
13	13	Governor Tommy G. Thompson be hung in the assembly parlor.
14	14	Whereas, Wisconsin workers and reformers have long made important
15	15	contributions in the history of labor in the United States, having helped enact new
16	16	state laws early in the 20th century, such as Worker's Compensation and
17	17	Unemployment Insurance, that, in turn, were adopted by other states and the
18	18	federal government; and
19	19	Whereas, decades earlier, in the late 1800s, workers were still struggling to
20	20	attain basic rights in the workplace, and still generally labored at physically
21	21	punishing jobs for 10 to 12 hours per day, six days per week; and
22	22	Whereas, in the 1880s, workers in Milwaukee, like others in Chicago and across
23	23	the country, began to advocate for the eight-hour workday, an early cornerstone of
24	24	the basic bill of rights of all people in the workplace; and
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42	42	Whereas, facing no apparent efforts toward this reform on the part of
43	43	employers, workers' organizations across the nation eventually called upon all
44	44	workers to cease their labor if employers had not adopted a standard eight-hour
45	45	workday by May 1, 1886; and
46	46	Whereas, in Milwaukee, civil parades and demonstrations developed over the
47	47	first five days of May 1886, as workers peaceably and without violence joined the
48	48	national work stoppage to protest and abolish inhumane work hours; and
49	49	Whereas, on May 2, 1886, there was a huge Eight-Hour Day Parade in which
50	50	many German and Polish workers and their families walked to the picnic grounds,
51	51	and on May 3, 1886, thousands of workers from the breweries and the building trades
52	52	went on strikes and marched from factory to factory; and
53	53	Whereas, by May 5, 1886, unrest among Milwaukee's laborers over the struggle
54	54	for better work hours had led to more than a dozen strikes in the city, involving
55	55	carpenters, coal heavers, sewer diggers, iron moulders, teamsters, common laborers,
56	56	and other workers asking for humane work hours; and
57	57	Whereas, the last grand factory in Milwaukee still in operation that day was
58	58	the North Chicago Rolling Mill, in Bay View, which manufactured rails for the
59	59	nation's railroads; and
60	60	Whereas, on May 5, 1886, despite the threat of violence from the state militia,
61	61	a crowd of striking workers started to walk, peaceably and unarmed, to the Rolling
62	62	Mill to enjoin the workers there, known as iron puddlers, to participate in the general
63	63	strike; and
64	64	Whereas, despite the law-abiding nature of their procession, this group of
65	65	walking laborers was fired upon by the state militia upon direct orders from
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92	92	Governor Jeremiah Rusk to do so, killing seven people and wounding four, including
93	93	innocent bystanders; and
94	94	Whereas, some 50 of those workers who marched that day and were fired upon
95	95	were indicted on charges of rioting and conspiracy for merely exercising their right
96	96	of freedom to assemble, and three of them eventually served six to nine months in
97	97	prison; and
98	98	Whereas, the infamous events of May 5, 1886, will remain a part of Wisconsin's
99	99	cultural and economic legacy forever, and should remind us in the present to honor
100	100	the sacrifices our forebears made, including laying down their lives, so that all those
101	101	who labor might lead safer and more productive work lives; and
102	102	Whereas, the citizens of Bay View and Milwaukee commemorate this pivotal
103	103	series of events annually on the first Sunday of May at the site of the Bay View
104	104	Rolling Mill Historic Marker at S. Superior Street and E. Russell Avenue in
105	105	Milwaukee; now, therefore, be it
106	106	Resolved by the assembly, That to commemorate the Bay View strike and
107	107	tragedy and the sad fact of deadly opposition used by then Governor Jeremiah Rusk,
108	108	the assembly chief clerk shall permanently remove the portrait of Jeremiah Rusk
109	109	that hangs in the assembly parlor from all public display and shall hang in its place
110	110	a portrait of former Governor Tommy G. Thompson, for whom the assembly parlor
111	111	is named.
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