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