SALON

Monday, Sep 17, 2012 6:45 PM UTC

Confusion in wake of Wisconsin union ruling

By

Topics: From the Wires,

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin school and government employee unions on Monday were considering whether to seek new contract talks after a state court threw out a new law that restricts public workers’ collective bargaining rights.

At least one major union representing about 4,700 teachers in Madison said it will demand new contract negotiations, while others said they were considering their options.

A Dane County judge ruled Friday said the law, passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2011, violates the school and local employees’ constitutional rights to free speech, free association and equal representation. Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has said he will ask a court to put the ruling on hold while he prepares an appeal.

The law, championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker to address public budget problems, has been the focal point of a broader clash between conservatives and unions over worker rights.

The ruling came in one of a number of lawsuits that are expected to determine the legality of curtailing employees’ collective bargaining.

The law limits bargaining on wage increases to the rate of inflation. Other issues, such as workplace safety, vacation and health benefits, were excluded from collective bargaining.

Unions covered by contracts reached under the new law are considering whether to demand negotiations now that the law has been struck down. But the prospects for new action may remain unclear for some time as the appeals courts consider how to handle the legal challenges and lower court decisions.

“There are hundreds of questions about what this means for local school districts at this time and I don’t think anybody has the answers,” said Miles Turner, executive director of the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators. “This is going to take some time.”

John Matthews, the Madison teachers union’s executive director, said the district should begin talks immediately on a two-year contract that would take effect starting July 1, 2013.

“There is time now where it’s legal for the school district to bargain with us,” Matthews said. His union represents about 4,700 employees in the Madison district, the state’s second largest with about 27,000 students.

The district’s spokeswoman, Rachel Strauch-Nelson, said the issue was likely to be discussed by the board of education this week.

Van Hollen, the attorney general, has not said whether he will ask the state’s conservative-leaning Supreme Court to take the case directly, rather than have it go to the appeals court first.

Legal experts said they expect higher courts to stay the Dane County ruling in the meantime.

“I would be shocked if it was not granted so that all these bargaining units don’t have to deal with the fallout while it’s in litigation,” said Janine Geske, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who is now a law professor at Marquette University.

Paul Secunda, a labor law professor at Marquette, said the beginning collective bargaining now would create “mass confusion.”

The Dane County ruling said that capping union workers’ raises but not those of their nonunion counterparts was unconstitutional. The suit, filed by the Madison teachers union, applied to local and school employees, but not those employed by the state or the University of Wisconsin System.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations