MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Wisconsin public employee and teacher unions scored a major legal victory Monday in a ruling that restores collective bargaining rights they lost under a 2011 state law that sparked weeks of protests and made the state the center of a national fight. . over trade union rights.
This law, known as Act 10, effectively ended the ability of most public employees to bargain over pay raises and other issues and forced them to pay more for health insurance and pension benefits.
According to Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost’s ruling, all public sector workers who lost their collective bargaining power would be restored to the status they had before 2011. They would be treated the same as police, fire and other public safety departments. which were exempted from the law.
Republicans have vowed to immediately appeal the decision, which is likely to eventually go to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. That only adds to the importance of the April election, which will determine whether the court remains under the 4-3 control of liberal justices.
Former Gov. Scott Walker, who proposed the law that catapulted him onto the national political scene, condemned the decision in a post on social media platform X as “brazen political activism.” He said that makes the state Supreme Court election “that much more important.”
Supporters of the law said it gives local governments more control over workers and the powers they need to cut costs. Repealing the law that allowed schools and municipalities to raise money through higher employee contributions to benefits would bankrupt those entities, proponents of Act 10 argued.
Democratic opponents say the law has hurt schools and other government agencies by taking away employees’ ability to collectively bargain over their wages and working conditions.
The legislation was proposed by Walker and passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature despite massive protests that lasted for weeks and drew as many as 100,000 people to the Capitol. The law has withstood numerous legal challenges over the years, but this was the first since the Wisconsin Supreme Court came under liberal control in 2023.
The seven unions and three union leaders who filed the lawsuit argued the law should be struck down because it creates unconstitutional exemptions for firefighters and other public safety workers. Attorneys for the Legislature and state agencies countered that the exemptions are legal, have been upheld by other courts, and the case should be dismissed.
But Frost sided with the union in July, saying the law violates equal protection guarantees in the Wisconsin Constitution by dividing public employees into “general” and “public safety” employees. He ruled that general labor unions, like unions representing teachers, could not be treated any differently than public safety unions, which were exempted from the law.
His Monday ruling outlined dozens of specific provisions in the law that need to be implemented.
Wisconsin Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said he looks forward to appealing the ruling.
“This lawsuit comes more than a decade after Act 10 became law and after numerous courts have rejected the same meritless legal challenges,” Vos said in a statement.
Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business lobbying organization, also condemned the decision. WMC President Kurt Bauer called Act 10 “a critical tool for policymakers and elected officials to balance budgets and find savings for taxpayers.”
The lawmaker said in a court filing that the arguments presented in this case were rejected by the state Supreme Court in 2014. The only change since that decision is the makeup of Wisconsin’s highest court, attorneys for the Legislature argued.
Act 10 effectively ended collective bargaining for most public unions by allowing them to bargain only for base wage increases that would not exceed inflation. It also banned the automatic cancellation of union dues, required an annual vote on union recertification and forced public workers to pay more for health insurance and pension benefits.
The law was Walker’s signature legislative achievement aimed at overturning the election he had won. Walker used his struggles with unions to run unsuccessfully for president in 2016.
Frost, the judge who issued Monday’s ruling, appears to have signed a petition to remove Walker from office. None of the defense attorneys asked for his removal from the case, and he did not resign. Frost was appointed to the bench by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who signed a petition to impeach Walker.
The law also led to a dramatic decline in union membership across the state. The nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum said in a 2022 analysis that since 2000, Wisconsin has seen the largest decline in the share of the workforce that is unionized.
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 suit are the Abbotsford Education Association; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Locals 47 and 1215; Beaver Dam Educational Association; SEIU Wisconsin; Teacher’s Assistants Association Local 3220 and International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 695.
