New Ohio, Wis., Labor Laws Besieged

Protesters against Ohio's new state law that curtails the collective bargaining rights of more than 350,000 public workers gather at the Ohio Statehouse for a rally launching the We Are Ohio campaign, in Columbus on April 9. The campaign is signing up volunteers to circulate petitions in pursuit of a referendum to repeal the measure.

—Jay LaPrete/AP

By Sean Cavanagh

Elected officials in Ohio and Wisconsin were successful in muscling into law new measures to restrict collective bargaining rights for teachers and other public workers, but those controversial plans now face serious legal and political challenges.

In Ohio, teachers’ unions have joined other labor organizations and political advocates in an effort to collect enough signatures to force a referendum aimed at overturning the state’s new bargaining law.

And in Wisconsin, the state’s collective bargaining law is being challenged in court on the grounds that state legislators violated open-meetings laws by approving it through an unusual procedural maneuver. That case is pending in...