Law & Courts News in Brief

Judge Invalidates Most of Wis. Anti-Union Law

By Mark Walsh — September 25, 2012 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

A state judge has struck down key provisions of the 2011 Wisconsin law that curtailed the collective bargaining rights of teachers and other public employees.

Judge Juan B. Colas of Dane County Circuit Court in Madison ruled Sept. 14 that the anti-union law championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker violates public employees’ rights to free speech and association under the state and federal constitutions. The law was passed amid a tumultuous legislative special session, and unions later helped force a recall election for Mr. Walker, which the governor survived.

In response, a union that represents about 100,000 employees in Milwaukee County, the Milwaukee public schools, the city of Milwaukee and other municipalities sent letters last week requesting negotiations on new contracts, the Associated Press reported. Some local affiliates of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest teachers’ union, have also begun the process of asking their districts to return to the bargaining table.

The state judge ruled in a challenge brought by Madison Teachers Inc., an affiliate of the National Education Association representing teachers and other school employees in the Madison district, as well as by a Milwaukee municipal employees’ union.

The unions challenged the key provisions of the Wisconsin law, such as ones that prohibit municipal and school employers from offering union-represented workers a base wage increase greater than the cost of living, bargaining on issues other than wages, entering into “fair share” agreements covering employees who refuse to join the union, and deducting union dues from government paychecks.

The lawsuit also challenged the statute’s annual-recertification procedures for the unions.

Judge Colas ruled that the law’s provisions burden the rights to free speech and association of the unions and their members.

Gov. Walker, in a statement, said the people of Wisconsin “clearly spoke” on June 5, the date of his recall-election victory, but “sadly, a liberal activist judge in Dane County wants to go backwards and take away the lawmaking responsibilities of the legislature and the governor. We are confident that the state will ultimately prevail in the appeals process.”

Related Tags:

A version of this article appeared in the September 26, 2012 edition of Education Week as Judge Invalidates Most of Wis. Anti-Union Law

Events

Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Privacy & Security Webinar
Navigating Cybersecurity: Securing District Documents and Data
Learn how K-12 districts are addressing the challenges of maintaining a secure tech environment, managing documents and data, automating critical processes, and doing it all with limited resources.
Content provided by Softdocs

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Law & Courts Supreme Court Declines to Hear School District's Transgender Restroom Case
The case asked whether federal law protects transgender students on the use of school facilities that correspond to their gender identity.
4 min read
People stand on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 11, 2022, in Washington, D.C.
People stand on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 11, 2022, in Washington, D.C.
Mariam Zuhaib/AP
Law & Courts What a Proposed Ban on AI-Assisted ‘Deep Fakes’ Would Mean for Cyberbullying
Students who create AI-generated, intimate images of their classmates would be breaking federal law, if a new bill is enacted.
2 min read
AI Education concept in blue: A robot hand holding a pencil.
iStock/Getty
Law & Courts Supreme Court Declines Case on Corporal Punishment for Student With Autism
The justices refused to hear the appeal of an 11-year-old Louisiana student who alleges that two educators slapped her on her wrists.
3 min read
The Supreme Court building is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 10, 2023.
The Supreme Court building is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 10, 2023.
Patrick Semansky/AP
Law & Courts U.S. Supreme Court Declines Bid to Rename 'Brown v. Board of Education'
Descendants argued that their case, not the one from Topeka, Kan., should have topped the 1954 decision on racial segregation in schools.
3 min read
Linda Brown Smith stands in front of the Sumner School in Topeka, Kan., on May 8, 1964. The refusal of the public school to admit Brown in 1951, then nine years old, because she is black, led to the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the "separate but equal" clause and mandated that schools nationwide must be desegregated.
Linda Brown Smith stands in front of the Sumner School in Topeka, Kan., in 1964, a segregated white school where she had been denied enrollment in 1951, leading to the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down the "separate but equal" doctrine in the case that bears her family name, <i>Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.</i> The high court on Jan. 8 turned away an effort by descendants of the litigants in a companion desegregation case from South Carolina to rename the historic decision for their case, <i>Briggs</i> v. <i>Elliott</i>.
AP