Wisconsin, February 28: Thousands of opponents of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s budget repair bill gather for protests at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison.
Protests against a Republican governor’s plan to bust Wisconsin workers’ unions have spilled into nearly all 50 states, including Washington, New York, California, and Nevada.
Tens of thousands of people staged rallies in cities across the US on Saturday to express their solidarity with people in Wisconsin, who are becoming increasingly outraged by the move to keep tight rein on public sector unions, Reuters reported on Sunday.
On February 25, Wisconsin’s State Assembly passed a controversial bill, proposed by Republican Governor Scott Walker, to curtail the state’s labor unions as the ongoing political wrangling between organized workers and cash-strapped state governments spreads across the US.
The plan now needs state Senate approval, but Senate Democrats have fled Wisconsin to prevent a vote.
About 100,000 people converged on Saturday in the Wisconsin State Capitol to air their grievances over the decision by the Republican governor to strip public sector unions of most collective bargaining rights in areas of healthcare coverage, pensions and other benefits.
The aftershocks from the passage of the bill continue to reverberate across the US with demonstrators in New York hitting the streets and waving signs reading “Cut bonuses, not teachers,” “Unions make us strong,” and “Wall St is destroying America.” Some demonstrators wore stickers that read “We are all Wisconsin.”
About 1,000 people also poured into the streets in Chicago, Denver, Nevada and Columbus, Ohio. Several hundred rallied in Austin, Texas, and about 100 people joined a demo in Miami to express their solidarity with people in Wisconsin.
In California, the Los Angeles City Hall turned into the focal point of anti-bill demonstrations, as more than 3,000 people attended the rallies, chanting slogans against what has been widely viewed as an “assault” on public sector unions.
Denver saw another demonstration in support of the Wisconsin workers with police estimating that crowd at more than 1,200 people. In Washington, protesters cheer on Saturday during a rally in support of Wisconsin workers, calling for the defeat of the plan.
Hundreds of Kansas labor union members and supporters rallied outside the Statehouse against what they see as political attacks on workers.
Some experts believe the confrontation between state government and labor union would serve as a wake-up call to Americans about a systematic attack on public workers’ unions.
The American middle class is being attacked by an oligarchy, who intends to have a total control on the US economy, Jennifer Loewenstein, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Media.