The Associated Press
The fight over Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s signature policy achievement, a law effectively ending collective bargaining for most public employees, ended Thursday with the state Supreme Court declaring it to be constitutional.
Passage of the law in 2011 put Wisconsin at the center of a nationwide battle over union rights and fueled Walker’s rise to national prominence as he entered the mix of possible 2016 presidential candidates.
Anger over the law, which came to be known as Act 10, led to Walker being forced to stand for recall in 2012; he won, making him the first governor in U.S. history to withstand such a vote. Walker is up for re-election this November, the third time he will be on the ballot in four years.
The 5-2 state Supreme Court ruling is another major victory for Walker as he heads into the statewide election. Federal courts twice said the law, which limits public workers to bargaining only over base wage increases no greater than inflation, constitutional.
“No matter the limitations or ‘burdens’ a legislative enactment places on the collective bargaining process, collective bargaining remains a creation of legislative grace and not constitutional obligation,” Justice Michael Gableman wrote for the court’s conservative majority.
The law also requires public employees to contribute more toward their health insurance and pension costs, bars automatic withdrawals from members’ paychecks and requires annual elections to see if members want their unions to go on representing them.
Local government and political party officials were not surprised by the decision.
Jan Koch, chair of the Democratic Party of Shawano County, said the Supreme Court has been influenced by big money and politics to the point of becoming partisan.
“The Supreme Court has a conservative majority. They will rule what the governor thinks,” Koch said. “It’s a shame the Supreme Court has to be so partisan in today’s world.”
Tom Madsen, Shawano County administrative coordinator, said he also expected the ruling, due to the conservative makeup of the court.
“Act 10 is what it is, we are just going to have to live with it,” he said.
However, he said cities and counties are still dealing with the ramifications of the law.
“We are going about trying to feel our way through it,” Madsen said. “Instead of relying heavily on the collective bargaining agreement, counties have to write handbooks and we have to write new policies and procedures.”
In a two-sentence statement issued Thursday, Walker praised the ruling and claimed the law has saved taxpayers more than $3 billion — mostly attributable to schools and local governments saving more money because of the higher contributions.
“Today’s ruling is a victory for those hard-working taxpayers,” Walker said.
Walker’s opponent for re-election, Democrat Mary Burke, has a nuanced position on the law, which has upset some in her party who want it to be repealed entirely. Burke supports the higher employee contributions, and has said she does not want to repeal the full law, but she does support restoring collective bargaining.
The high court ruled in a lawsuit filed by the Madison teachers union and a union representing Milwaukee public workers. They had argued that the law violated workers’ constitutional rights to free assembly and equal protection.
Attorney Lester Pines, who represented the teachers union, said the decision was not unexpected given the critical comments the justices made during oral arguments.
But Pines said the length of the legal fight gave unions time to prepare for operating in a post-collective bargaining environment.
Walker introduced the proposal shortly after taking office in 2011, a move that was met with fierce resistance from teachers, other public workers and their supporters who flooded the Capitol for weeks in an effort to block the bill’s passage. Democratic state senators fled the state for nearly three weeks in a failed attempt to block the bill’s passage.