Wisconsin’s civil servant and teacher unions won a major legal victory Monday with a reinstatement ruling collective bargaining rights they lost under a 2011 state law That led to weeks of protests and made the state the center of the national struggle for trade union rights.
That law, known as Act 10, effectively ended the ability of most government employees to negotiate pay raises and other issues, and forced them to pay more for health insurance and retirement benefits.
Under the ruling by Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost, all public sector workers who have lost their collective bargaining power would have it restored to their pre-2011 position. They would be treated the same as police, fire and other public safety associations. that were exempt under the law.
Republicans vowed to immediately appeal the ruling, which will likely ultimately go before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. That only reinforces the importance of the April elections, which will determine whether the court will rule remains controlled 4-3 by liberal justices.
Former Gov. Scott Walker, who proposed the law that catapulted him onto the national political stage, labeled the ruling as “brazen political activism” in a post on the social media platform He said this makes the state Supreme Court elections “so much more important.”
Supporters of the law say it would give local governments more control over workers and the powers they need to cut costs. Repealing the law, which allowed schools and local governments to raise money through higher employee contributions for benefits, would put those entities out of business, proponents of Act 10 have argued.
Democratic opponents argue that the law has harmed schools and other government agencies by depriving workers of the ability to collectively bargain over their wages and working conditions.
The law was proposed by Walker and enacted 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 shifted to liberal control in 2023.
The seven unions and three union leaders who filed the lawsuit argued that the law should be struck down because it creates unconstitutional exemptions for firefighters and other public safety workers. Lawyers for the Legislature and government agencies countered that the exemptions are legal, have already been upheld by other courts and the case should be dismissed.
But Frost sided with unions in July, saying the law violates equal protection guarantees in the Wisconsin Constitution by dividing government workers into “general” and “public safety” employees. He ruled that general employee unions, such as those representing teachers, cannot be treated differently than public safety unions that were exempt from the law.
His ruling Monday outlined dozens of specific provisions in the law that should be struck down.
Wisconsin Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said he looks forward to appealing the ruling.
“This lawsuit came more than a decade after Act 10 became law and after many courts rejected the same meritless legal challenges,” Vos said in a statement.
Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business lobbying organization, also denounced 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 arguments in the current case were rejected by the state Supreme Court in 2014. The only change since that ruling is the composition of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, attorneys for the Legislature argued.
Act 10 effectively ended collective bargaining for most public unions, allowing them to negotiate only base wage increases that did not exceed inflation. It also disallowed the automatic cancellation 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 the signature legislative achievement of Walker, who was the target of a recall election that he won. Walker used his battles with unions to become an unsuccessful presidential candidate in 2016.
Frost, the judge who ruled Monday, appeared to have signed the petition to recall Walker from office. None of the lawyers requested his removal from the case and he did not resign. Frost was appointed to the bench by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who signed the Walker recall petition.
The law has also led to a dramatic decline in union membership across the state. The nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum said in a 2022 analysis that Wisconsin experienced the largest decline in the share of its workforce that is unionized since 2000.
In 2015, Wisconsin’s Republican Party-controlled legislature passed a right-to-work law that limited the power of private sector unions.
Public sector unions that filed the lawsuit include the Abbotsford Education Association; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Locals 47 and 1215; the Beaver Dam Education Association; SEIU Wisconsin; the Teaching Assistants’ Association Local 3220 and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 695.
