Labor

The Wisconsin State Senate passed the Assembly's version of the budget late Thursday night after nine hours of spirited debate, sending the $66 billion spending plan to Governor Walker for his signature.

The Republican-controlled Senate approved the measure 19-14 along strictly partisan lines. Lawmakers debated late into the evening amid audible reactions from gallery spectators and a boisterous rally on the front steps of the Capitol. Several audience members in the Senate chamber were removed during the course of the debate for disrupting the legislative session.

Crowds of protesters who flocked to the Wisconsin state Capitol June 14 anticipating Assembly action on the divisive collective bargaining bill, which essentially eliminates collective bargaining for public workers, were shocked to learn the Supreme Court had reinstated the law in a hotly contested 4-3 decision.

Speakers at a planned 5:00 p.m. rally were quick to lift the faltering spirits of the Wisconsin Democracy Movement. Mahlon Mitchell, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin, told the crowd of thousands, "We're going to be here every day. We didn't pick this fight, but if it's a fight they want, it's a fight they're going to get."

This afternoon, the People's Rights Campaign, a coalition of labor and community organizations, organized a community action on Madison's Capitol Square. Activists scrounged for their last pennies and taped them to "deposit slips" so that they could be deposited directly into the accounts of the CEOs of M&I Bank, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase Bank.

"Why should they have to pay any taxes at all when grubby peasants and working stiffs still have a few pennies left in their pockets?" asked the group's press release.

May Day, or May 1st, became International Workers' Day in 1886, when it was the beginning of a multi-day general strike in Chicago in which workers demanded an eight-hour work day. On May 4, 1886, the strike ended in what became known as the Haymarket Affair.

Yvonne Geerts of the Immigrant Workers Union said, "In 2006, immigrant workers reclaimed May Day as a clear acknowledgment that immigrants are the first workers who recognize the importance and the practicality of unity with all workers. Today, thousands of working families are victims of the policies of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, via service cuts to important programs like BadgerCare, FoodShare, Education, and so much more. Solidarity, today, is more relevant than ever."