Friday, January 18, 2013

Federal Court Upholds The Wisconsin Law That Caused So Many To Get Their Panties In A Bunch

A federal court of appeals has upheld the law in its entirety:
A federal court of appeals on Friday upheld Wisconsin's law repealing most collective bargaining for most public employees, handing a victory to Gov. Scott Walker and his fellow Republicans who put the law in place amid tumult two years ago.

Parts of the collective bargaining law, known as Act 10, remain on hold because of a state judge's ruling in a separate case, but Friday's decision was a setback for public employees and their unions...

The lawsuit was brought by the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the Wisconsin State Employees Union and other unions. WEAC President Mary Bell expressed disappointment with the decision...

Among the provisions was a ban on allowing the state or local governments from deducting union dues from employees' paychecks. Another element of the bill required unions to hold annual recertification votes to remain intact, and to succeed they had to get the approval of 51% of all eligible employees, not just a majority of those voting...

The unions now have to decide whether to ask the full Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to review the panel's decision. The unions have the option of skipping that step and appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, which takes only a small number of cases.
Good for Wisconsin. I can fantasize about the day that Californians come to their senses.

1 comment:

allen (in Michigan) said...

I guess the unions had to exhaust every possibility but they must've known going in that they didn't have much of a chance of overturning the law in the courts.

After all, this was a repeal of previously-passed law allowing collective bargaining and mandatory dues collection neither of which are among the enumerated rights so what the state of Wisconsin giveth is certainly within it's power to taketh away. I suppose that's why the unions had to hang their hopes on free speech and equal protection as the foundation of their complaints although even to my legally-untutored mind that must've been a faint hope.

I'm wondering whether we're not seeing the end days for what was not so long ago hailed as the new frontier for unionism - government unions. If so it's been a pretty brisk ride on a historical basis. From zero to their peak to zero again in one lifetime.