A Dane County judge has struck down most of Governor Scott Walker’s collective bargaining reforms, setting up an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Judge Juan Colas, appointed by former Democratic governor Jim Doyle, issued a sweeping decision that eliminated almost all of Act 10′s measures to loosen the grip on power of public unions. Specifically, Judge Colas:
Colas ruled that the law violated workers’ constitutional rights to free speech, free association and equal representation under the law by capping union workers’ raises but not those of their nonunion counterparts. The judge also ruled that the law violated the “home rule” clause of the state constitution by setting the contribution for City of Milwaukee employees to the city pension system rather than leaving it to the city and workers.
While state workers will remain covered under the law, local unions will be free to renegotiate contracts:
For now, it appears school districts and local officials will have to return to the bargaining table with their workers in a much more significant way. The decision raises a host of unanswered questions about the significant changes in pay, benefits and work rules that have taken place over the past year in schools and municipalities around the state while bargaining was essentially dead.
[...]
Under Walker’s law, both state and local governments were prohibited from bargaining with their workers over anything besides a cost-of-living salary adjustment. Other issues, such as health benefits, pensions, workplace safety and other work rules, were strictly off limits.
For local workers, all those issues can now be bargained. The ruling also restored local unions’ ability to reach so-called fair share deals that require all workers within a given bargaining unit to pay union dues, even if they choose not to join.
With cutbacks in education spending, local governments used the law to great effect to keep their budgets under control. Now, they will have to renegotiate with emboldened unions who, as they are proving in Chicago, don’t care much if the government they are negotiating with is broke or not.
Governor Walker pointed out that the people have spoken on this matter and the judge is overturning the result of the recall election held last June:
“The people of Wisconsin clearly spoke on June 5th. Now, they are ready to move on. Sadly, a liberal activist judge in Dane County wants to go backward and take away the lawmaking responsibilities of the Legislature and the governor,” Walker said in a statement.
Several other challenges to the law are working their way through the courts and will probably end up on the Supreme Court docket next year.
So the PJM title should read “Liberal Activist Judge Strikes Down…”
Who cares if it’s in Wisconsin!?! Tell the reader later where the judge is from… Sounds like your writing about cheese, not radical leftist corruption or the overturning of the Will of The People of WI by a tyrant commie judge…
Time to use the impeachment power and remove these judges from power.
“Colas ruled that the law violated workers’ constitutional rights … by capping union workers’ raises but not those of their nonunion counterparts.”
That either means unions are inherently unconstitutional because every contract has salary specifications that apply only to those covered by the contract. Or, it means the contract may not limit the compensation for union members, that the Payee must pay whatever the union demands, thus confirming that the negotiating process is really just extortion.
I’ll also point out that “free association” does not apply in a “closed shop”. You can either “freely associate” with the union or “freely associate” with the union. There is no choice.
But, congrats to Judge Colas for keeping a losing issue for the Democrats alive. The national media is doing everything it can to help Obama win and the unions are doing everything that they can to defeat him. Heck of a job Colas!
Yep, one would think a higher court will laugh that decision out of town, but it is a crazy world.
The union game is always to keep it in play until the next election. That’s why any significant reform in collective bargaining laws must begin the second a new governor takes office or a new legislature convenes. A reforming administration must also have the AG onboard, something often difficult in states with elected AGs in which AG really stands for Almost Governor.
And just so we all speak the same language: A closed shop is a workplace where one must be a member of the union in order to get the job. Closed shops are illegal though some arrangements in the construction industry come very close to being closed shops. The common union security arrangement in the public sector is the Agency Shop in which one does not have to be a member to get the job but one must become a member or a fee payer by, usually, the 31st day of employment to keep the job. A public employee who objects to doing so cannot legally be compelled to support the “social, fraternal, or political activities” of a union but can be compelled to pay a fee for the representational “services” provided to the objector by the union. This amount, usually a little, often a very little, less than full dues is called an agency fee payer. Unfortunately, few employees know or are willing to exercise their right to object and the state of the law is such that objectors are seriously discriminated against in that while they must pay for contract negotiation and administration, they are not even allowed to vote on the contracts that establish their terms and conditions of employment. Since there probably isn’t a single union in the Country whose dues structure and accounting practices could withstand scrutiny, if there were some courageous Republican governors and AGs, they could really throw a wrench in the unions’ money laundry works. But then, that would be partisan and mean-spirited and we can’t have that from Republicans.
Since the unions will never accept defeat and will keep on peppering WI with lawsuits even after this decision is overturned, its obviously time to take things to the next level. After January, when they have a majority again, the Gov needs to simply ban public sector unions all together.
Looking back Walker could hardly have caught more flack had he done that initially. Unfortunately I believe the union may be ingrained in the WI constitution.
Relax, guys. Yeah, it may take electing a new WI supreme court to overturn this, but eventually it will happen. In the meantime, in overplaying their hand yet again, the Dems just handed the state to Romney/Ryan/Thompson. The sooner law-abiding people in Wisconsin understand that the Democratic Party will use any means, legal or extralegal, to obtain its ends, the better they’ll be equipped to vote it out of existence. And if they’re not up to the fight, then they need to imagine the future the Democrats would build, a future without any constraints on central governments. Suck up your guts and get on with the fight. For myself, that New Hampshire state motto is becoming more applicable every day: “Live free or die.”
How does jurisdiction work in WI? Does a county judge’s ruling have any effect beyond his county? The union playbook is always to make any little victory look like the be and and end all victory. This has the look and feel of a lower court judge thinking one day there’ll be a Democrat governor and a Supreme Court appointment in exchange for his great service.
RickH above is probably right. In my experience when you mess with unions politically, if you’re in for a penny, you’re in for a pound. In other words, they don’t scream any louder for your taking everything away than for your taking a little thing away. The only downside is their plaintive wails resonate a little more with the mushy middle if you’re taking big things away.
And just to keep things straight; you can’t “ban public sector unions.” That would violate the freedom of association provisions of the federal and most state constitutions. If a bunch of people want to get together and call their get together a union and even charge dues for those who get together, they can and it is constitutionally protected. What you can do is relieve employers of a duty to bargain and enter into written, enforceable agreements with that “get together” called a union and prohibit that get together from charging those dues as a condition of continued employment.
“What you can do is relieve employers of a duty to bargain and enter into written, enforceable agreements with that “get together” called a union and prohibit that get together from charging those dues as a condition of continued employment.”
This is what I was advocating way back when they started this. They need to simply prevent government from negotiating, not prevent unions from trying to negotiate. The fly in that ointment, though, is that the next Dem administration would just ignore such a prohibition.
And yes, the judge is angling for a future promotion. I get so sick of the results being pre-ordained in our courts. It’s like the OCare decision in the SC. The case against was well argued. The case for was a total bust. Roberts, however, engaged in tortuous wording to justify his pre-ordained decision. The actual law and arguments seem to have no meaning, anymore. Kangaroo courts.
Because Executives and legislatures love to hide behind the judges’ skirts when election time rolls along.
“We couldn’t help it, They made us do it.”
Did we fight the Revolution and the Civil War to kneel to mere disgusting, sodomite lawyers?
Newt ain’t hardly ever right, but he’s right about some things: stand in the courthouse door. Just fire all the union scum and bad judges. Stop paying them. Sooner or later, they’ll find something else to do. After all, they don’t command armies. Plus, they’re all weenies.
Wallace and Forbus were wrong, because they were wrong, not because they stood up to overweening government. Now that I think upon it, maybe they weren’t so wrong, after all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU7eV3PnNFA
Stop them here, or prepare for Civil War II.
The problem with unions is that the Constitutional exercise of Free Association by the Employees forever trumps the Constitutional exercise of the Employer to Freely Associate with other employees.
The formation of unions is entirely Constitutional but their operation is entirely unConstitutional. The operation of unions is not an inalienable right but a privilege granted by government.
Exactly right. Where does constitutionality come in when employees are forced to pay dues that are used to support political issues and candidates the employee disagrees with?
Is the good judge going to strike that clause?
The people speak with the power of a vote. Then some judge can come in say sorry but your vote does not count. What country do we live in?
The leftists have finally found Colas that they want people to swallow in large measures
Pray for the health of conservative Justices, for if Emir Baraque retains the throne and the navel-staring narcissism of the cretinous Senatorial Candidate Akin leads to a Democrat retention of the Senate, all of Gov Walker’s efforts will be nullified by the Novo-Fascisti of the Obamacratik Party (praise be unto the Prophet Marx). As so will go the rest of the Land and the Free World with it.
Protecting unions is more important to the left than protecting jobs, keeping cities and states from going bankrupt, or obeying laws of the land.
The Workers Party is the cornerstone of crony collusion in the Democratic Party.
It has been a major cog in the bankrupting and collapse of cities and states all over the country.
That doesn’t matter one whit to leftists. In fact, collapsing the system is a feature, not a bug for those who buy into the Cloward-Piven strategies of “transforming” America.
This is actually a very good thing for Walker, if he plays it right. At Walker’s next press conference he should get up and say something to the effect: ‘Fine, let Colas enforce his decision. Just remember, the state LEOs and National Guard work for me.’
That would cut the props out from under Colas, leaving him sitting on his bench with his thumb shoved up his *afterburner* and egg on his face.
Walker could run for King of WI for life and probably win. Never let a good constitutional crisis go to waste, Eh….
Uh, hasn’t the STATE SUPREME COURT already ruled on this? How does a county court over rule the STATE SUPREME COURT? Isn’t that the last word on the subject, or can activist judges keep constantly litigating the issue?