Wisconsin public employees and teachers the unions scored major legal victory Monday with a ruling that restores collective bargaining rights lost in 2011. state law that sparked weeks of protests and turned the state into the center of a national struggle over union rights.
That law, known as Act 10, ended the ability of most public workers to negotiate pay raises and other issues and forced them to pay more for health insurance and retirement benefits.
According to the ruling by Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost, all public sector workers who lost their bargaining power would regain what they had before 2011. They would receive the same treatment as police, fire and other public safety unions. who were exempted under the law.
Republicans vowed to immediately appeal the ruling, which eventually is likely to go all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. This increases its importance April elections that will decide the court that liberal justices continue to control 4-3.
Former Gov. Scott Walker, who proposed the law that catapulted him onto the national political stage, condemned the ruling in a post on the social media platform. X as in “shameless political activism.” He said it makes the state Supreme Court election “much more important.”
Supporters of the law said it gave local governments more control over workers and the powers they needed to cut costs. Repealing the law, which allowed schools and local governments to raise money through higher employee contributions to benefits, would bankrupt those entities, Prop 10 backers argued.
Democratic opponents argue that the law has hurt schools and other government agencies by stripping employees of their ability to collectively bargain for their wages and working conditions.
Union leaders were delighted with the ruling, which affects tens of thousands of public sector workers.
“We realize there may still be a fight in court, but make no mistake, we’re prepared to keep fighting until we all have a seat at the table,” said conservation officer and president Ben Gruber. AFSCME Local 1215.
The law was proposed by Walker and enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislature, despite massive protests that dragged on for weeks and brought about 100,000 people to the Capitol. The law has faced several legal challenges over the years, but this was it brought first Since the Wisconsin Supreme Court flipped to liberal control in 2023.
This was argued by the seven unions and three union leaders who brought the case the law should be struck down because it creates unconstitutional exemptions for firefighters and other public safety employees. Attorneys for the Legislature and state agencies responded that the exemptions are legal, have already been upheld by other courts, and that the case should be dismissed.
But Frost sided with the unions in July, saying the law violates the Wisconsin Constitution’s protective guarantees by dividing public workers into “general” and “public safety” workers. It ruled that general labor unions, like those representing teachers, cannot be treated differently from public safety unions, which were exempt from the law.
His ruling on Monday spelled out dozens of specific provisions of the law.
Wisconsin Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said he expects to appeal the ruling.
“This lawsuit comes more than a decade after Act 10 became law and after multiple courts have rejected similar lawsuits without merit,” Vos said in a statement.
Wisconsin Manufacturers and Traders, the state’s largest business lobby organization, also condemned the ruling. WMC President Kurt Bauer called Act 10 “a critical tool for policymakers and elected officials to balance budgets and find savings for taxpayers.”
The Legislature said in court filings that those were the arguments made in the current case Rejected in 2014 State Supreme Courts. The only change since that ruling is the formation of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, argued the Legislature’s lawyers.
Act 10 effectively ended collective bargaining for most public unions, allowing them to bargain only for base wage increases no greater than inflation. It also rejected the automatic removal of union dues, required annual recertification votes for unions and forced public employees to pay more for health insurance and retirement benefits.
The law was Walker’s signature legislative achievement, targeting a re-election bid he won. Walker used his struggles with unions in his unsuccessful 2016 presidential bid.
Frost, the judge who handed down Monday’s ruling, it looks like he signed the petition To recall Walker from the office. None of the lawyers asked to be removed from the case and did not resign. Frost was appointed to the chair by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who signed Walker’s recall petition.
So are the laws led to a huge decline in unions across the state. The nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum said in a 2022 analysis that Wisconsin saw the largest decline in the proportion of unionized workers since 2000.
In 2015, the GOP-controlled Wisconsin Legislature passed a right-to-work law that limited the power of private sector unions.
The public sector unions that filed the suit are the Abbotsford Education Association; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Locals 47 and 1215; Beaver Dam Education Association; SEIU Wisconsin; Local 3220 of the Association of Teaching Assistants and Local 695 of the Teamsters of International Brotherhood.
