Teamsters local 120, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota & the Minnesota Nurses Associaltion have filled two buses. Heading to Madison #wiWe expect Teamsters from all Wisconsin locals, as well as from Illinois and the Rail Conference, to be on their way to the state capital. The Teamsters semi is parked on the square, as it has been for the last few weeks, and Teamsters will hand out a new supply of "Stop the War on Workers" signs from the back of the truck. Local 344 will sell shirts and knit hats. Two weeks ago, the local had 100 T-shirts printed and sold them all in 12 minutes during the mammoth Feb. 26 rally.
Farmers will drive into the city at noon with a tractorcade to show their support for working families (we hope no one traveling to the rally gets stuck behind them).
The homecoming parade of the Fab 14 senators who left Wisconsin to prevent the bill from being voted on should be the emotional high point of the day.
This could be the biggest rally in labor history.
Meanwhile, David Dayen at firedoglake gives us the 411 on the bill:
Wisconsin’s anti-public employee bill is signed, but the Secretary of State will take the maximum 10 days to publish the legislation, which means it won’t officially become law until March 25 at the earliest, and probably not until the following Monday, March 28. So there are a couple weeks of legal efforts to go here before we see if the bill will become law immediately...Just because this first round in court failed does not mean that the effort will ultimately be unsuccessful. In fact, experts have begun to give their opinion that the bill probably did violate those open meetings laws.
