Wisconsin Judge Overturns Anti-Union Law Limiting Collective Bargaining Rights

A Wisconsin judge has ruled that an anti-union law passed over a decade ago is in violation of the state constitution’s equal protections provisions, a finding that could allow public sector employees to once again collectively bargain with their government bosses.

Wisconsin’s Act 10 law, passed in 2011, bars most state employees from being able to negotiate, through their unions, for better wages and working conditions. While the law didn’t ban public sector unions outright, it effectively made them powerless in fighting for workers’ rights.

The law, when it was first proposed, came out of nowhere — neither former Gov. Scott Walker (R) nor legislative Republicans had campaigned on ending collective bargaining rights for state workers in the 2010 “Tea Party” wave of elections. Despite not informing the public about his intentions to derail workers’ rights in the state, Walker made the bill a priority, pushing for its passage a little more than a month after his tenure as governor began.

Many Wisconsin voters were furious with the move, and thousands protested daily at the state capitol against the passage of the bill. During one of those protests, as many as 100,000 people demonstrated inside and outside the building, braving winter temperatures and traveling from all regions of the state to attend. Some of those demonstrators stayed overnight in the capitol building, to ensure that state lawmakers would not try to pass the bill in secret.

Ultimately, the Republican state legislature passed the bill anyway. Nationwide polling at the time found that more than three in five U.S. voters opposed stripping collective bargaining rights from public sector workers.

In response to a lawsuit filed by a number of unions in late 2023, Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost initially ruled in July that provisions of Act 10 were unconstitutional, denying a motion at that time by Republican lawmakers for the suit to be dismissed.

On Monday, Frost elaborated on his decision from July by making an official ruling, finding that the parts of the law outlining which public sector employees it applied to rendered the entire piece of legislation unenforceable and unconstitutional.

The law bars “general” public sector workers from being able to collectively bargain. However, “public safety” workers, who weren’t adequately defined in the legislation, could still bargain for their contracts through their unions.

While Republicans in favor of keeping the law intact argued that “public safety” workers were easy to define, some unions — including those representing the Wisconsin Capitol Police, Wisconsin university police departments, and state conservation workers — were still denied the ability to bargain collectively under Act 10.

“I cannot solve Act 10’s constitutional problems by striking the definition of ‘public safety employee,’ leaving the term undefined and leaving the remainder of the law in place,” Frost said in his decision.

Although Republicans will no doubt try to appeal the ruling, several Democratic state lawmakers and union leaders praised Frost’s decision, which came 13 years after Walker had signed Act 10 into law.

“Today’s news is a win,” said Wisconsin Education Association Council President Peggy Wirtz-Olsen. “While there will likely be more legal legwork coming, WEAC and our allies will not stop until free, fair and full collective bargaining rights are restored.”

“This historic decision means that teachers, nurses, librarians and other public-sector workers across the state will once again have a voice in the workplace,” said Wisconsin-based Law Forward president and general counsel Jeff Mandell. “Every Wisconsin family deserves the chance to build a better future through democratic participation in a union.”

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers — a Democrat who defeated Walker in 2018 — also heralded the ruling, saying it was “great news” for public sector workers.

Evers, who has attempted to overturn Act 10 in every budget he’s proposed (only to be blocked by the Republican-led legislature each time), added:

I’ve always believed workers should have a seat at the table in decisions that affect their daily lives and livelihoods. It’s about treating workers with dignity and respect and making sure no worker is treated differently because of their profession.

With the decision likely to be appealed sometime in the future, the ultimate fate of Act 10 will likely find its way to the state Supreme Court, which has ruled against similar challenges to the law before. However, those rulings came when the court was under conservative control — today, the majority of justices on the court are liberals, and are likely to be more open to arguments made against the law.

That means that an upcoming state Supreme Court race, to fill a soon-to-be vacant position on the court, will likely gain importance in the coming months. Although liberal bloc members have won by wide margins in the past two races, Wisconsin is an incredibly “purple” state, with president-elect Donald Trump winning its 10 Electoral College votes last month by less than 1 percentage point.