Judge Restores Wisconsin Public Employees’ Collective Bargaining Rights

A Wisconsin county judge’s recent decision returned collective bargaining rights to the state’s public employees, while undoing one of former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s first and most significant acts while in office.

As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, Dane County Judge Jacob Frost issued a Dec. 2 ruling that overturned Act 10, which had become former Gov. Walker’s “signature piece of legislation” since he introduced it in November 2010, shortly after winning the Wisconsin governorship.

With Act 10’s passage in 2011, the legislation essentially “ended the ability of most [Wisconsin] public sector unions to negotiate over any issues other than raises, and those raises were capped at the rate of inflation,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Jessica Van Egeren wrote, adding that Act 10 also required the state’s public sector unions to hold annual elections to maintain their ability to negotiate for those raises.

“For those elections, they must win a majority of all eligible members, not just those who cast votes,” she continued, noting that the legislation also “cut public workers’ paychecks and siphoned off most of the strength of their unions.”

For example, public employees earning $50,000 a year saw their take-home pay shrink by more than 8% as a result of having to pay more for their benefits, she wrote, citing a Legislative Fiscal Bureau analysis of the legislation’s impact.

In a ruling that struck down the essential components of Act 10, Frost determined that the law was unconstitutional, as it made some public employees exempt from the law’s restrictions on unions, while others in similar roles did not receive the same protection. This recent decision confirms a ruling he issued in July 2024, when Frost rejected motions to dismiss the 2023 lawsuit challenging the law.

As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted, Walker responded on X in the wake of Frost’s Dec. 2 decision, describing the ruling as “brazen political activism.” In a follow-up tweet, Walker added that collective bargaining is not a right, but “an expensive entitlement.”

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos seemed to concur, saying in a statement that “this lawsuit came more than a decade after Act 10 became law and after many courts rejected the same meritless legal challenges,” adding that “we look forward to presenting our arguments on appeal.”

Others praised the ruling, however. State Rep. Darrin Madison, for example, called it “a monumental victory for Wisconsin’s working class.”

The Dec. 2 decision “is a crucial step to recognize and restore the rights of hard-working public employees doing the people’s work in every corner of Wisconsin,” added State Senator Dianne Hesselbein, in a statement. “There are likely further hurdles ahead, and I applaud the resolve of those who have kept up the effort to restore the right to collectively bargain in the state.”