Thousands of union supporters protested Gov. Scott Walker's budget proposals on Saturday at the state capital, a day after the state's chief executive followed through on his threat to issue layoff warning notices to unions representing state workers.
Joining the crowd was liberal filmmaker Michael Moore, who praised the protesters gathered in the battle over union bargaining rights as joining the history of the American labor movement.
Walker, a Republican, has proposed increased payments for health care and pension benefits for public workers and stripping their unions of most of their collective bargaining rights, a move he says is necessary to address a budget gap of $3.6 billion for the coming two years.
The warning notices, sent on Friday to at least 13 unions, do not represent actual layoffs for the state's 300,000 public employees but take the war of words between the newly elected governor and state Democrats to a new level.
Moore told the crowd, which was smaller than it has been the last two weekends of the ongoing protests, that the nation was awash in wealth, concentrated in the hands of a few, but the public has been cowed into not standing up for itself.
"Madison is only the beginning," Moore said. "The rich have overplayed their hand.