Upwards of 125,000 March in Madison, as Activists Rally Nationwide to Back Wisconsin Workers

John Nichols @ The Nation - members of the Teaching Assistants Association, the oldest graduate employee union in the world, rallied to object to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s plan to strip public employee unions of collective bargaining rights. The message from the TAA was blunt: “All public sector workers are under attack. Faculty and staff are under attack. The UW as a whole is under attack. With these extreme acts, Scott Walker is seeking to undermine the labor peace of 50 years…. You need to get active now!”

It worked.

Two weeks later, upwards of 125,000 Wisconsinites rallied at the state capitol in Madison, as tens of thousands more rallied in communities across the state that American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union President Gerald McEntee calls “ground-zero in the fight for labor rights. Police estimates from before the crowd hit its peak were in the range of 100,000, but busloads of union members and their allies continued to arrive through the afternoon. And while the crowds outside the capitol were massive, thousands more were inside the building. By nightfall, news outlets such as CNN were using the 125,000 figure, as the Wisconsin AFL-CIO cited estimates of 150,000. Read more.