Police officers announced Sunday that they would not arrest or forcibly remove protestors who have been camped inside the Madison, Wisconsin Statehouse. The demonstrators have been protesting Republican Governor Scott Walker’s extreme anti-union bill that proposes to reduce state workers’ salaries and take away the right of unions to collectively bargain for salary benefits, hours, and working conditions for almost two weeks. The bill would cut public workers’ wages between six and eight percent.
A day prior, the state agency in charge of the Capitol police had announced that the overnight protestors would be removed. Although police are now encouraging the protestors to leave so that the Capitol could be cleaned, they stated that no one would be detained or forcibly removed from the premises.
The number of protestors reached 70,000 on Sunday. Governor Walker is encouraging the fourteen Democratic Wisconsin Senators, who secretly fled from the state and blocked the vote on the bill in a strategy to make the Governor negotiate with them.
