The Madison Teachers Union is demanding to bargain with the district after a Dane County
judge this week restored collective bargaining rights for most Wisconsin public employees
that were effectively eliminated under former Governor Scott Walker's Act 10.
But how long will that window of bargaining opportunity last before a higher court stays
the Dane County order as it moves along the appeals process?
We turn to Brenna Godar, a staff attorney at the State Democracy Research Initiative
at the UW Law School.
Thanks very much for being here.
Thanks for having me.
So as to that question, the Republican legislature already appealed this Dane County order.
How long might this window last for unions hoping to exercise their bargaining rights
under the Dane County order?
So it could be pretty short.
The legislature is almost certainly going to ask the Court of Appeals for a stay of
the lower court's decision, meaning it would be on pause and wouldn't go into effect
yet.
And then if that happens, it could be months before we actually get a final resolution
in the case or before that stay is lifted, and that would likely require the Wisconsin
Supreme Court to weigh in eventually.
Yeah, and I want to talk about that in a moment.
But does the legislature have a good basis for appeal in your mind?
So I think it's a tough case.
I think it raises some complicated legal issues.
And so there are strong arguments on either side.
So they certainly have a basis to appeal the decision.
So as to the case, the Dane County ruling focused on the separate treatment of public
safety employees under Act 10.
What was the legal argument supporting overturning the law on the basis of this separate treatment?
So this case really focused in on how public safety employees were defined.
And the Court said that it was fine for the legislature to distinguish between public
safety employees and general employees.
So could distinguish between police officers and firefighters and the like and other employees,
but the way that it had drawn those lines was not rational or reasonable.
And so what it really looked at was things like that group included municipal firefighters,
municipal police officers, state motor vehicle inspectors, state traffic patrol, but didn't
include certain groups like UW police, capital police, or conservation wardens who you might
expect to be in that group.
And so what the Court really looked at was, was there a way that you could sort of define
that public safety group in a way that was rational or reasonable, and it didn't find
a clear reason on which to draw those lines?
Well, even from the outset of the signing of this law, it always seemed a little like
why them, but not them.
Yeah, and that's what this case came down to.
And because he determined that you couldn't draw that line in a rational way, he decided
you need to strike down that distinction.
And the result of that was that the general employee's category now has the same collective
bargaining rights as those who were previously carved out under the public safety category.
So how likely is it that other unions, like the Madison Teachers Union, would scramble
to reinstate collective bargaining following the ruling?
So I think it depends sort of on how long the stay lasts and sort of strategically how
much it makes sense to mobilize those resources, but I do think it's worth noting that unions
have still, excuse me, been able to exist and do some limited collective bargaining.
And so they can still do organizing preemptively, even if this decision is stayed, to sort of
prepare for those upcoming negotiations if this decision is ultimately upheld.
So as we've discussed, the likely path for this is that it lands in the Wisconsin Supreme
Court.
The balance of that court right now is a liberal majority.
We know we are coming into a spring election.
Dacey, is that for both sides in this case?
I think the biggest thing is that it just is going to mean that Act 10 is a really salient
issue in the upcoming election.
So it's highly unlikely that the state Supreme Court will decide the issue before the April
election, but they very well could decide it before August, which is when that next
justice would be taking their seat on the court.
So do you think it becomes a salient issue to the extent that it kind of turns into
a referendum on Act 10?
Potentially.
I think Act 10 has really been off the radar for a lot of people for quite a while now.
And so I think it might become more of a referendum on it this time around.
I think in addition to some of the other issues that we already saw in the prior election,
like abortion.
As a matter of law, how surprising was it that this lawsuit actually stuck when so many
against Act 10 failed?
Yeah, so I think it definitely is something that people kind of weren't paying attention
to anymore and didn't necessarily expect to see this time around.
The legislature was making those arguments that essentially it was too late to bring
these claims and that they should have been brought in prior lawsuits, but the court rejected
those arguments, and it really looked at the fact that this case did bring distinct legal
claims from those prior cases and that they weren't the same plaintiffs as those prior
cases.
All right.
Well, we obviously all will be watching this.
Brenna Goder.
Thanks very much.
She's going to be saying that sentence was so long.
I was feeling it, I had to breathe the choice.
Sorry, my throat's going.
So at the time, right?
I mean, did you cover Act 10?
Yeah, so Marissa and I actually drove, we were both at the Minnesota Daily in Minnesota
at the time, and we drove from Minnesota to Wisconsin to cover Act 10 for a test.
Wasn't that wild?
Yeah.
I covered it too.
Yeah.
It was so nuts.
To me, one of the nuttiest things was when the Sergeant at Arms went around the Capitol
looking for the Democratic Senators.
He was looking in there like, you know, credenses and stuff and under desks and you were following
him.
It was just, you know, yeah, it was really great stuff, so it was important.
Yeah.
Yeah, unfortunately, we weren't in Wisconsin, so we didn't get to cover the whole thing.
Yeah.