Pocan, thanks very much. >> Sure. Thank you.
>> 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 ten. 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
Bryna 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.
in a 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.
County ruling focused on the separate treatment of public
safety employees under act ten. What was the legal argument
supporting overturning the law on the basis of this separate
treatment? 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
certain groups like UW police, Capitol 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
Rafter 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 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 needed to strike down that
distinction. And the result of that was that the general
employees 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 on
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. How dicey is
that for both sides in this case?
>> I think the biggest thing is that it just is going to mean
that act ten 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 ten,
potentially. >> I think act ten 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 as
a matter of law, how surprising was it that this lawsuit
actually stuck when so many against Act ten 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 the 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. those prior cases.