Wisconsin has been home to strong union advocates since the nineteenth century, but their path hasn’t always been easy.
Considering it’s one of the first states in the Midwest to boast a diversified, industrialized economy, it shouldn’t come as a shock that Wisconsin has been home to labor union activists for over 150 years. From the industrial boom that hit Milwaukee in the nineteenth century to the rise of twenty-first-century labor activism, Wisconsin’s unions have had a long history, marked by triumphs and tragedies alike.
Looking at the history of labor unions in Wisconsin, there have been fights, tensions, and troubles, but also progress and innovation. Here’s a timeline of seven crucial events in the history of labor unions in the Badger State:
1847: Wisconsin’s First Union
The labor movement in the nineteenth century reached Wisconsin before it was officially a state. In 1847, one year before Wisconsin was officially granted statehood, the state’s first union was formed by bricklayers in Milwaukee. The next year, in addition to Wisconsin statehood being made official, the new state saw the birth of its second union, again in Milwaukee, when the city’s carpenters organized.
These unions were not only the first in Wisconsin but also among the earliest in the United States. The labor movement began as a response to the Industrial Revolution, and whether labor organization was even legal was in dispute until 1842, when the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in the case of Commonwealth v. John Hunt & Others that “labor combinations,” or groups of workers banding together to advocate for a common cause, were legal, so long as their actions and goals didn’t break any existing laws. Just five years later, Wisconsin had its first union.
1867: The Knights of St. Crispin
While the bricklayers were Wisconsin’s first union, the Order of the Knights of St. Crispin was the first Wisconsin union to expand beyond the state’s borders. This union was founded by shoe makers in Milwaukee and took its name from the Catholic patron saint of cobblers. However, it quickly expanded beyond Milwaukee and became the first Wisconsin-founded union to go national, with its numbers swelling to over 50,000 members in its prime. Unfortunately, the Knights of St. Crispin were not prepared for this explosive growth and lacked the organizational tools to sustain it, leading to the union’s disbandment in 1874.
1886: The Bay View Massacre
In 1886, the labor movement in Wisconsin experienced one of its darkest days. At the beginning of May 1886, workers across Milwaukee went on strike in support of an eight-hour workday. On May 5, 1,500 striking workers marched to the Bay View Rolling Mills, a major employer at the time, to urge workers there to join the strike and the marches. The Wisconsin State Militia was waiting for them and ordered them to disperse. When the workers refused, the militia fired on the crowd, killing seven people.
While the tragic deaths caused an immediate end to the marches, the incident turned public sympathy to the side of the workers. Labor organizers turned towards political campaigning, and that year, the People’s Party of Wisconsin won seats across the state, beginning a new era of progressive Wisconsin legislation.
1932: The Start of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
Many historians consider the 1930s part of Wisconsin’s “golden age” of labor unions, and in 1932, that golden age led to the formation of a new union. The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME, was founded in Wisconsin as the first, and currently the largest, government employees union in the United States.
Before that, though, the future AFSCME was known as the Wisconsin State Employees Association (WSEA). In 1932, state employees in Madison unionized over fears of politically motivated firings. After teaming up with the American Federation of Labor (AFL), the AFSCME was granted a charter and eventually expanded into the powerful national civil servants’ union it is today.
1954-1965: The Kohler Strike
One of the most potent tools in a labor union’s toolkit is the ability to strike. In 1954, Wisconsin union workers at the Kohler manufacturing company outside of Sheboygan began what became the longest strike in the history of the United States, lasting a whopping eleven years.
The striking workers at Kohler, who were members of the United Auto Workers Union (UAW), lived in a company town, and their employer, one of the largest manufacturers of plumbing fixtures in the country, saw himself as benevolent. But the workers wanted a contract with higher wages and protections from layoffs, among other things, leading to the strike.
For seven years, from 1954 to 1961, Kohler workers picketed, protested, and encouraged a boycott of Kohler products. They were supported by strike funds, and some took on other work, until the NLRB ruled in favor of the workers in 1961—a major victory, though not the end of the fight. The labor dispute as a whole didn’t formally conclude until 1965, when Kohler agreed to pay back wages and pension contributions to striking workers.
2011: The Act 10 Protests
In the aftermath of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, sometimes known as the GFC, Wisconsin elected Republican governor Scott Walker. In an attempt to reduce a state budget deficit in 2011, he enacted Act 10, a state law that severely restricted the collective bargaining power of public sector unions. This sparked a massive wave of protests across the state, including an attempt to recall Governor Walker. While the recall attempt was unsuccessful, it was not the end of challenges to Act 10, which have continued for over a decade.
Challenges became heavily concentrated in the courts, where, in 2024, a Wisconsin Circuit Court judge struck down part of Act 10, claiming it violated the state constitution. Further challenges are still in the works, and many labor activists hope the 2024 ruling will pave the way for the full repeal of Act 10.
2025: Raven Software Gets a Union
Most recently, Wisconsin labor activists made history in a sector that nineteenth-century industrialists could never have dreamed of: video games. Raven Software is a Wisconsin-based games studio that made history when its quality assurance (QA) team became the first employees at a major video game studio to successfully form a union. While the union at Raven Software is still very new, it has already secured its first contract with Microsoft.
