Thirteen years ago, Republican Governor Scott Walker and the legislature of Wisconsin enacted Act 10, which banned collective bargaining for public employees, except for public safety employees. Teachers, social workers, and other public employees were outraged. They encircled the State Capitol for days. Walker became a star, and his sponsors, the Koch brothers, were happy.
But today, Act 10 was declared unconstitutional. Time will tell whether the decision is upheld.
A Dane County judge on Monday sent ripples through Wisconsin’s political landscape, overturning a 13-year-old law that banned most collective bargaining among public employees, consequently decimating the size and power of employee unions and turning then-Republican Gov. Scott Walker into a nationally known political figure.
But there’s been a revival of hope in Wisconsin:
The effort to overturn Act 10 began in November 2023 when several unions representing public employees filed the lawsuit, citing a “dire situation” in workplaces with issues including low pay, staffing shortages and poor working conditions.
In July, Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost ruled provisions of Act 10 unconstitutional and denied a motion filed by the Republican-controlled Legislature to dismiss the case.
The lawsuit argued the 2011 law violated equal protection guarantees in the Wisconsin Constitution by dividing public employees into two classes: “general” and “public safety” employees. Public safety employees are exempt from the collective bargaining limitations imposed on “general” public employees.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hopefully, this victory will hold. Never give in. Never give up!
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Wow. I did not expect to see such good news.
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And here I thought Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature were the first ones to exclude public safety unions from their anti-union laws.
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When Rick Snyder and the Republican trifecta in Michigan passed RTW in a decade ago they also exempted public safety unions. Those unions lean R.
RTW in Michigan was aimed very specifically at teacher unions.
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Actually RTW has nothing to do with teachers Unions. Public Sector Unions were not covered in the National Labor Relations Act. Their existence was always at the mercy of States. Therefore most states have labor laws that restrict Public Sector Unions from the right to strike, to the right to organize and limitations on what they can even negotiate for. So Act 10 limited the scope of representation. To explain Janus . The Taliban Court ruled that the States can not compel Pubic Sector Workers to pay fair share fees . Affecting only those states that actually did so . When a State became RTW of course they did make those provisions apply to their Public Sector Workers. And as you say exempted who they wanted to. But the point is : there is nothing to compel a state to even negotiate with Public Sector Unions . As act 10 proved when it limited the scope of negotiations. To “base wage increases that could not exceed inflation”
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