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