Plot Summary

Wisconsin Rising documents the largest sustained workers' resistance movement in American history, telling the dramatic story of how the people of Wisconsin occupied the State House and the streets when Republican Governor Scott Walker introduced legislation that stripped state employees of their right to collectively bargain in the workplace, undoing eight decades of basic workers' rights. In 2011 thousands of Wisconsin citizens occupied the State House and the streets surrounding the capitol to protest the stripping of collective bargaining power from Wisconsin's public employees by the Republican-controlled legislature and newly elected governor Scott Walker. Dramatic footage shows more than 10,000 Wisconsinites pouring into the capitol, and Republican Senators fleeing on a secret shuttle. While Republican legislators invented new laws to restrict access by citizens—and even elected officials—to the State House, the occupation persisted.