Green Bay Correctional Institution | Photo by Andrew Kennard

Amidst a staffing crisis that worsened living conditions in Wisconsin prisons, the state gave corrections officers a large raise.  

The number of vacant positions for correctional officers and sergeants across adult institutions has declined over 20% from a peak of 35%. But there’s still a struggle with working conditions, former correctional officer Joe Verdegan said. 

“By its nature, with the clientele you have there, it’s a very toxic environment,” said Verdegan, who worked at Green Bay Correctional Institution from 1994 to 2020. “The toxic part of it will never change, but the problem is, you need veteran staff that can deal with it.” 

Wisconsin’s Act 10, passed in 2011, excluded many government workers from collective bargaining for anything other than inflationary increases to base wages. The law led to an exodus of veteran staff concerned about what might happen to their pensions, Verdegan wrote in a 2020 book about GBCI.

Act 10 grouped some workers together as public safety employees and others as general employees. Public safety employees’ collective bargaining rights were largely unchanged, while those of general employees were severely curtailed. 

Dane County Judge Jacob Frost struck down the law’s collective bargaining restriction, ruling that the Wisconsin Legislature didn’t have a defensible reason for excluding some public safety workers from the public safety group. 

On Wednesday, Frost put his order on hold, granting a temporary stay on his Dec 2 ruling while he considers written arguments that he should keep the ruling on hold while the Wisconsin Legislature appeals it.

Frost’s December 2 decision essentially confirmed a previous ruling released in July, in which he wrote that Act 10 violated the equal protection clause of the Wisconsin Constitution. Previous legal challenges failed to overturn the law. 

Opponents of the law celebrated what the decision might mean for employees’ power in the workplace, while supporters said Act 10 saved billions of dollars. Former Gov. Scott Walker, who signed Act 10 into law, called the decision “brazen political activism” and “an early Christmas present for the big government special interests.”

The law’s effect on retirement contributions led to an increased cost for public employees and government savings. Since employees were responsible for a larger share of pension contributions, state and local governments saved nearly $5.2 billion over the seven-year period from 2011 to 2017, according to a 2020 report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum. 

The judge didn’t strike down Act 10 provisions that changed the rules for employees’ retirement contributions and health insurance premiums, an attorney representing unions in the case told Wisconsin Watch. Those provisions don’t rely on the distinction between the public safety and general employee groups, he said. 

Frost’s ruling has been appealed, and it’s expected to go to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Wisconsin Public Radio reported. Its fate might depend on an upcoming Wisconsin Supreme Court election and whether any justices recuse themselves. 

Frost didn’t find a legal problem with the Legislature treating the public safety group differently than the general employees group — for example, by providing them with benefits that would attract quality employees to jobs important for public safety. If teachers, administration or sanitation workers face labor unrest, their absence from work probably wouldn’t cause death or great harm, he wrote in the July ruling. 

Instead, Frost took issue with the Legislature’s decision to not include certain workers in the public safety group, including the Capitol Police, conservation wardens and correctional officers. 

Specifically referring to correctional officers, Frost wrote, “What greater threat is there to public safety than the escape of the persons that those in the public safety group arrested and brought to justice?” 

Wisconsin prisons have seen a staffing crisis, allegations of harassment 

After Act 10, GBCI staff had to contribute more to their pensions and paid higher health insurance premiums, Verdegan wrote in his book. 

“People were fleeing the prison to go drive truck, be bartenders, work in cheese factories, or even bag groceries at Woodman’s,” Verdegan wrote. 

Corrections officers were asked to put in more overtime around 2011 or 2012, former GBCI officer Jeff Hoffman told the Examiner in July. 

“From that time forward, it never got any better,” said Hoffman, who left GBCI in early 2023 after almost 23 years. “If you were there, you were going to work 16-hour shifts.” 

Staffing vacancies for correctional officers and sergeants have declined substantially from a peak of 35% in August 2023 to the current 12.9% vacancy rate.

In the DOC’s 2022 Climate and Engagement survey, over half of security staff expressed at least some disagreement with the idea that their pay was fair relative to the duties they performed. Over half said that if they left DOC, it would be because of their salary and/or benefits. 

These responses were given before Wisconsin implemented a large pay raise for corrections officers. Under the pay increases, correctional officers’ wages increased from $20.29 an hour to over $30 an hour, with more pay for officers in higher-security and understaffed prisons. Wages had received a $4 boost from federal pandemic relief funds prior to the increase, the Associated Press reported. 

Verdegan wrote in his book that some supervisors would try to harass or intimidate staff. Sean Daley of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 32 made a similar remark to the Examiner in 2022. 

“It’s a tough enough job as it is,” Daley told the Examiner in 2022. “Add in that a lot of the supervisors think they’re ‘top-cops’ and spend their time tirelessly harassing staff with weak investigations and it just adds to the vacancy rates.”

Nearly half of security staff expressed at least some disagreement with the statements “My supervisor cares about my interests” and “Employees are treated fairly in my work unit.” 

About 1 in 10 strongly disagreed with the statement “My supervisor treats me with dignity and respect,” with about a quarter expressing at least some disagreement. About three-quarters at least somewhat agreed that they have positive relationships with their colleagues. 

Close to 40% of security staff expressed at least some disagreement with the statements “Work rule violations are not tolerated” and “I can disclose a suspected violation of a rule, law, or regulation without fear or reprisal” in the 2022 survey.  

Some individual facilities have vacancy rates for correctional officers and sergeants that are higher than the overall number for adult facilities, including  20.5% at Waupun Correctional Institution. Waupun has seen several prisoner deaths and staff charged with crimes. 

Waupun has seen an influx of staff since September, when the vacancy rate was 42%. Sarah Cooper, administrator of the DOC’s division of adult institutions, said at a public meeting in September that other staff were sent to assist Waupun. For example, Waupun also had 40 supplemental staff per pay period, she said. 

Correctional officers and sergeants are far from the only staff in Wisconsin prisons. The Department of Corrections has varying levels of vacancies of other staff. Some of the highest vacancy rates are 22% for social services and 21% for psychological services. 

Prison Policy Initiative argues for addressing staffing issues through decarceration

While Wisconsin’s large pay raises have garnered credit for bringing in new staff, the state hasn’t yet seen whether current efforts will fully staff Wisconsin prisons. A briefing published last week by the Massachusetts-based Prison Policy Initiative challenged the idea that the U.S. can solve prison staffing problems through recruitment. 

The research and advocacy group argued that decarceration would be more effective in addressing understaffing than pay raises, lowering employment requirements, offering staff wellness programs or constructing new facilities. 

The group promoted reducing the prison populations through parole, other forms of release and taking steps to decrease the number of people admitted to prison. 

As of Dec. 6, Wisconsin’s adult prisons held over 23,000 people, more than 5,000 people higher than design capacity. The adult prison population has risen over 2,500 from fiscal year 2022 to fiscal year 2024. 

Incarcerated people face the worst harms of understaffing, the PPI argued, but they noted health risks that employees face, including injury, exposure to infectious diseases and high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. 

“Unfortunately, there’s only so much that a pay raise can do to ameliorate that,” said Wanda Bertram, communications strategist for the Prison Policy Initiative. 

A 2018 survey of Washington State Department of Corrections employees found that prison employees experience PTSD at a rate equivalent to Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans and higher than police officers. These jobs take a lot out of people, Bertram said. 

In Wisconsin’s adult prisons, 452 assaults on staff took place in fiscal year 2024, according to Department of Corrections data. The incident rate was 19.6 assaults per 1,000 incarcerated people, which is the highest it’s been since at least 2013, the earliest year available. These numbers are for adult institutions and many of the assaults involve prisoners spitting or throwing bodily substances (fewer than half involve battery, physical injury or sexual assault).

How long new staff stay in corrections also matters, and Bertram pointed to challenging turnover rates found in a 2020-2021 survey. The job isn’t for everyone, said Hoffman, the former GBCI correctional officer. 

“Historically speaking, from the time that I started there to the time that I left… if 10 new people would start at one point, usually half would quit,” Hoffman said. “Because they didn’t want to work in that environment.” 

Former officers’ thoughts on Act 10

Former correctional officer Denis O’Neill has had complicated feelings about Act 10. He said he would’ve liked to have more money in his pocket, but he said the act was for the greater good of Wisconsin and saved billions for taxpayers. 

In Verdegan’s book, O’Neill recounts the story of a fight in 2015 with an incarcerated man who was attacking a staff member. Verdegan wrote that there was “no question O’Neill was fighting for his life.” 

O’Neill left GBCI with a medical termination and had physical, cognitive and speech therapy, Verdegan wrote. He had at least four documented concussions while working at GBCI. O’Neill told the Examiner that he had to go back to doctors he was seeing and get new paperwork after the state said they didn’t receive the original documents. 

“It’s their job to make it as hard as possible as they can for you so that you get sick and tired of doing everything and you forget about it,” O’Neill said. “That’s the game I felt that was being played.”

O’Neill said he received his benefits after a state senator stepped in. He thinks the union could have taken care of the issue for him if it had not been disempowered under Act 10.

“I could’ve just continued to work on my recovery,” he said. 

Kimberly Verdegan, a former GBCI correctional officer who is married to Joe Verdegan, thinks prison jobs are less desirable than teaching jobs and that the passage of Act 10 didn’t take this into account. 

“Not to say that a teacher’s job isn’t important,” Kimberly Verdegan said. “But they have their holidays off, they go home at night. They don’t get forced to stay another shift.”

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections declined comment for this story, and AFSCME Council 32 did not respond to requests for comment. 

Update: This story has been updated with the most recent data on staff vacancies and prison assaults.

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Act 10, which effectively ended collective bargaining for most Wisconsin public employee unions, has saved taxpayers billions of dollars.

The 2011 law could be reviewed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court because of a recent judge’s ruling.

The law achieved savings mainly by shifting costs for pension and health benefits for public employees to the employees.

The nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum found in 2020 that state and local governments saved $5 billion from 2011 to 2017 in pension costs alone.

PolitiFact Wisconsin reported in 2014 that public employers saved over $3 billion on pensions and health insurance.

Getting rid of Act 10’s pension, health insurance and salary limits would raise annual school district costs $1.6 billion and local government costs $480 million, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty estimated in September.

However, the recent court ruling doesn’t invalidate Act 10’s higher employee contribution requirements, said attorney Jeffrey Mandell, who represents unions in the pending case.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Wisconsin Legislative Council: 2011 Wisconsin Act 10
• Dane County Circuit Court: Decision and order in Case No. 2023CV3152
• Wisconsin Policy Forum: Bridging the Pension Gap
• PolitiFact Wisconsin: Scott Walker says union reform law that brought massive protests has saved taxpayers $3 billion
• Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty: Back to the Past: The Fiscal Threat of Reversing Act 10 for Local Governments
• Wisconsin Watch: Did Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford try to overturn Act 10?
• Jeffrey Mandell: Email 12/11/24

Has Wisconsin’s Act 10 union law saved taxpayers billions of dollars? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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The news that a Dane County judge struck down key parts of Act 10 — former Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s signature anti-union law — prompted Walker to comment on X: “Collective bargaining is not a right. It is an expensive entitlement.” 

That’s the kind of message that helped make Walker a national Republican star back in 2011. The billionaire Koch brothers supported him and his pioneering approach to politics — turning neighbor against neighbor by weaponizing the resentment of working class people and training it on teachers and other public employees whose union membership afforded them health care and retirement benefits. Walker memorably called his approach “divide and conquer.” That philosophy is at the heart of Judge Jacob Frost’s decision, which found that Act 10’s divisive carve-out for “public safety” employees (i.e. Republican-voting cops) is unconstitutional. 

Walker started by pitting private sector workers against public employees. The next step, he promised his billionaire backer Diane Hendricks, would be to make Wisconsin a right-to-work state, smashing unions across the board.

Walker made good on that promise and signed the right-to-work law that undercut private sector unions. And he certainly succeeded in dividing Wisconsin, ushering in a toxic style of politics that set the stage for Donald Trump and nationwide polarization.

But Walker’s war on organized labor is out of tune with the populism of today’s Trump-dominated Republican party, which courted union support in the recent election. It’s also out of step with public opinion. A September Gallup poll found near record-high approval of labor unions with 70% of Americans saying they approved of unions, compared with 48% approval in 2009. 

In embracing Act 10 and Walker’s dubious legacy, Wisconsin Republicans are marching to a different beat than the rest of the country. 

“Act 10 has saved Wisconsin taxpayers more than $16 billion,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos declared in a statement. “We look forward to presenting our arguments on appeal.”

Other Republicans have made even bigger claims about the “savings” that came out of teachers’ paychecks and benefits. But over time, it has become clear who the real beneficiaries of those savings were. The Kochs and Hendricks didn’t support Walker because they thought he would do wonderful things for working class voters. They backed him because they wanted to squeeze workers and enrich themselves.

Act 10, and the other measures passed by the Wisconsin Legislature in its wake, including right-to-work and prohibitions on local governments from increasing wages and improving working conditions in city and county contracts, hurt Wisconsin workers and the state economy. 

“The changes, labor leaders and experts say, have caused flattened real wages for construction workers, higher pay for their bosses and local governments stuck offering wages that make it difficult to hire contractors — and hard for those workers to make a living,” Wisconsin Watch reported. 

A study by the Economic Policy Institute compared the economies of states with strong collective bargaining laws with so-called “right-to-work” states from 2011 to 2018. “Those ‘right-to-work’ states see slower economic growth, lower wages, higher consumer debt levels, worse health outcomes and lower levels of civic participation,” one of the study’s authors, Frank Manzo, told Wisconsin Watch.

On top of all that, Walker’s oft-repeated promise to create 250,000 new jobs in his first term was a bust. He made it just over halfway to that goal, according to a “gold standard” report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the end of his second term, Walker still hadn’t reached the 250,000 jobs number. Instead, when he left office, Wisconsin ranked 34th in the nation for private sector job growth, according to the BLS. Walker’s 10.3% growth rate fell far behind the national growth rate of 17.1%. And Wisconsin public schools have never recovered from Walker’s savage budget cuts.

There has been a lot of talk since the 2024 election about how Democrats have lost touch with working class voters, allowing the Trump-led Republican Party to capture disaffected working people who are suspicious that politicians don’t really care about them or represent their interests.

The Act 10 fight, which will be front and center in Wisconsin’s spring state Supreme Court race, reverses that dynamic. Democrats in Wisconsin have been fighting all along for better wages and working conditions for working class people, and Republicans have been outspoken in their opposition to workers’ rights.

Walker’s war on workers prompted historic protests in Wisconsin back in 2011, bringing together teachers, firefighters, police, prison guards, snowplow drivers and tens of thousands of citizens from across Wisconsin to protest at the Capitol. Democrats in the state Legislature fled to Illinois to temporarily deprive Republicans of the quorum needed to pass the law. Walker dismissed the protesters as “union bosses” and agitators brought in from “out of state.” But anyone who was there could tell you the crowd was made up of lots and lots of regular Wisconsinites outraged that the governor had made hardworking people his target.

The uprising in Wisconsin inspired other pro-democracy protests around the globe. Egyptian activists ordered pizza from Ian’s Pizza downtown for the protesters at the Capitol.

Still, in the short term, the protests failed. A grassroots recall effort against Walker fell short, and he went on to be reelected to a second term. But the tide has been turning steadily ever since. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers defeated Walker in 2018. Evers’ reelection by a larger margin in 2022 was one of 7 out of 10 statewide races Democrats have won since 2019. In one of those races, the Democratic-backed Supreme Court candidate Janet Protasiewicz beat her conservative rival by more than 10 points, flipping the ideological balance on the court and setting up the demise of Republican gerrymandering and, potentially, a final judgment against Act 10.

Today, as Democrats reel from their losses in the recent national elections, Wisconsin offers an example of a state where the fight over workers’ rights is at the center of politics. The Act 10 battle makes it clear which side each party is on. That’s good news for Democrats. For Walker’s brand of Republicanism, not so much.

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Liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford was among attorneys who sued seeking to overturn Act 10, a 2011 law that effectively ended collective bargaining for most Wisconsin public employee unions.

The law spurred mass protests for weeks in Madison.

At the time, Crawford said the law violated Wisconsin’s Constitution and was “aimed at crippling public employee unions.”

In 2014, the state Supreme Court upheld Act 10, calling collective bargaining “a creation of legislative grace and not constitutional obligation.”  

Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, Crawford’s conservative challenger in the April 1, 2025, election, made the claim about Crawford Dec. 1, 2024. Crawford is a Dane County judge.

On Dec. 2, Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost struck down Act 10 in a lawsuit in which Crawford is not listed as an attorney. 

An appeal notice was filed the same day. Appeals are likely to reach the Supreme Court, which has a 4-3 liberal majority.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Wisconsin Circuit Court Access: Dane County Case Number 2011CV003774 Madison Teachers Inc et al vs. Scott Walker et al
• Associated Press: Protesters leave Wis. Capitol on judge’s orders
• PBS Wisconsin: Crawford, Prof. Esenberg on Collective Bargaining Lawsuit
• Wisconsin Supreme Court: Case 2012AP2067
• Associated Press: Wisconsin unions score win as Dane County judge strikes down Act 10
• Wisconsin Circuit Court Access: Dane County Case Number 2023CV003152 Abbotsford Education Association et al vs. Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission et al

Did Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford try to overturn Act 10? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Protesters filled the Wisconsin Capitol in 2011 to protest the legislation that ultimately past as Wisconsin Act 10, eliminating most union rights for most public employees. (Photo by Emily Mills. Used by permission)

A Dane County judge on Monday struck down the core parts of the landmark state law that eviscerated most union rights for most public employees in Wisconsin.

Judge Jacob Frost ruled that Act 10, passed by the state Legislature’s Republican majority in 2011 and signed by former Republican Gov. Scott Walker in his first year in office, was unconstitutional in making some public safety workers exempt from the law’s limits on unions but excluding other workers with similar jobs from those protections.

The ruling essentially confirmed Frost’s ruling on July 3, 2024, when he rejected motions by the state Legislature’s Republican leaders to dismiss the 2023 lawsuit challenging Act 10.

In that ruling, Frost declared that state Capitol Police, University of Wisconsin Police, and state conservation wardens were “treated unequally with no rational basis for that difference” because they were not included in the exemption that Act 10 had created for other law enforcement and public safety employees.

For that reason, the law’s categories of general and public safety employees, and its public safety employee exemption, were unconstitutional, Frost wrote then.

Frost reiterated that ruling Monday. “Act 10 as written by the Legislature specifically and narrowly defines ‘public safety employee,’” Frost wrote. “It is that definition which is unconstitutional.”

In addition, the judge rejected the suggestion that Act 10 could remain in effect without the law’s public safety employee carve-out, and that either the courts or the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission could resolve a constitutionally acceptable definition in the future.

“The Legislature cites no precedent for this bold argument that I should simply strike the unlawful definition but leave it to an agency and the courts to later define as they see fit,” Frost wrote. “Interpreting ‘public safety employee’ after striking the legislated definition would be an exercise in the absurd.”

Advocates, lawmakers react

Opponents of the law, including plaintiffs in the lawsuit, cheered Monday’s ruling, while Act 10’s backers attacked it and vowed to see it through the appeals process.

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of a group of local and state unions and public employees by the progressive nonprofit law firm Law Forward along with Bredhoff & Kaiser.

“This historic decision means that teachers, nurses, librarians and other public-sector workers across the state will once again have a voice in the workplace,” said Jeff Mandell, Law Forward president and general counsel. “Every Wisconsin family deserves the chance to build a better future through democratic participation in a union. As an organization dedicated to protecting and strengthening democracy, Law Forward is proud to have been a part of this important case.”

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), dismissed Monday’s ruling. Through its Republican leaders, the Legislature was among the defendants in the lawsuit.

“This lawsuit came more than a decade after Act 10 became law and after many courts rejected the same meritless legal challenges,” Vos said in a statement. “Act 10 has saved Wisconsin taxpayers more than $16 billion. We look forward to presenting our arguments on appeal.”

Gov. Tony Evers, who has sought to repeal Act 10 since he took office in 2019, applauded the ruling.

“This is great news,” Evers, a Democrat, said in a social media post on BlueSky and on X. “I’ve always believed workers should have a seat at the table in decisions that affect their daily lives and livelihoods. It’s about treating workers with dignity and respect and making sure no worker is treated differently because of their profession.”

Evers sought to repeal the law in each of the three state budgets he has submitted since taking office, but the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee Republicans stripped those provisions each time.

Ben Gruber, a conservation warden and union leader, called the ruling “personal for me and my coworkers.” Gruber is one of the named plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

“As a conservation warden, having full collective bargaining rights means we will again have a voice on the job to improve our workplace and make sure that Wisconsin is a safe place for everyone,” he said in a statement distributed by the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC).

Member local unions of WEAC were among the plaintiffs.

“The lawsuit was filed because of the dire situation that exists in Wisconsin’s public service institutions since workers’ freedoms were unconstitutionally taken away,” WEAC stated. “The state’s education workforce is in crisis as 40 percent of teachers leave the profession in the first six years because of low wages and unequal pay systems; the conservation warden program is fraught with unfair and disparate treatment of workers; and there is a 32 percent staff vacancy rate for corrections officers.”

Also joining in the lawsuit was the union representing University of Wisconsin  graduate students who work as teaching assistants, TAA Local 3220.

“Graduate workers look forward to claiming our seat at the table to ensure our teaching and research, which helps make UW-Madison a world-class university, are supported and compensated fairly,” said TAA’s co-president, Daniel Levitin. “The winds of change are blowing in our direction and we urge the university to take note and voluntarily recognize the TAA as the union of graduate workers and be prepared to meet us at the bargaining table.”

TAA is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers. “Workers must have the right to partner with their employer and negotiate fair wages, benefits, and working conditions,” said AFT-Wisconsin President Kim Kohlhaas.

Appeals expected

WEAC’s statement cautioned that the ruling’s impact would be delayed by appeals. “The plaintiffs acknowledge that while this decision is a major win for Wisconsin’s working families, it is likely that the case will remain in the courts for some time before a final victory is reached and pledge to continue fighting until the freedoms of all workers in Wisconsin are respected and protected,” the teachers union said.

Sen. Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) was first elected to the Legislature the year after the law was passed and now leads the Democratic minority in the state Senate.

“This is a crucial step to recognize and restore the rights of hard-working public employees doing the people’s work in every corner of Wisconsin,” Hesselbein said in a statement. “There are likely further hurdles ahead and I applaud the resolve of those who have kept up the effort to restore the right to collectively bargain in the state.”

State Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) was a Milwaukee Public Schools teacher when the law was enacted.

“I saw firsthand the negative impact that the lack of collective bargaining had not only on our profession of teaching but also the schools, students, and our communities,” Clancy said in a statement. He called Monday’s ruling “a crucial step to ensuring that every Wisconsin worker has access to fair and equitable working conditions.”

Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevera (R-Fox Crossing), was among the GOP lawmakers decrying the decision, declaring that the law had saved taxpayers $30 billion — nearly twice the figure Vos asserted.

“Today, an activist Dane County judge overstepped his role and unilaterally struck down Act 10 because it didn’t align with his politics,” she said in a statement. “One judge, appointed by the current governor, acting like a super-legislature is about to bankrupt local governments and school districts across Wisconsin.”

Kurt Bauer, president of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state’s largest business lobby and among the groups that had championed the legislation, called the ruling “wrong on its face and … inconsistent with the law” in a statement Monday that called Act 10 “a critical tool for policymakers and elected officials to balance budgets and find taxpayer savings.”

He said the business lobby’s members “hope this ruling will be appealed and that Act 10 will be reinstated as quickly as possible.”

This story has been updated with reactions to the ruling. 

2023-CV003152_DOR11815507

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Wisconsin public worker and teachers unions scored a major legal victory Monday with a ruling that restores collective bargaining rights they lost under a 2011 state law that sparked weeks of protests and made the state the center of the national battle over union rights.

That law, known as Act 10, effectively ended the ability of most public employees to bargain for wage increases and other issues, and forced them to pay more for health insurance and retirement benefits.

Under the ruling by Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost, all public sector workers who lost their collective bargaining power would have it restored to what was in place prior to 2011. They would be treated the same as the police, firefighter and other public safety unions that were exempted under the law.

Republicans vowed to immediately appeal the ruling, which ultimately is likely to go before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. That only amplifies the importance of the April election that will determine whether the court remains controlled 4-3 by liberal justices.

Former Gov. Scott Walker, who proposed the law that catapulted him onto the national political stage, decried the ruling in a post on the social media platform X as “brazen political activism.” He said it makes the state Supreme Court election “that much more important.”

Supporters of the law have said it provided local governments more control over workers and the powers they needed to cut costs. Repealing the law, which allowed schools and local governments to raise money through higher employee contributions for benefits, would bankrupt those entities, backers of Act 10 have argued.

Democratic opponents argue that the law has hurt schools and other government agencies by taking away the ability of employees to collectively bargain for their pay and working conditions.

The law was proposed by Walker and enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislature in spite of massive protests that went on for weeks and drew as many as 100,000 people to the Capitol. The law has withstood numerous legal challenges over the years, but this was the first brought since the Wisconsin Supreme Court flipped to liberal control in 2023.

The seven unions and three union leaders that brought the lawsuit argued that the law should be struck down because it creates unconstitutional exemptions for firefighters and other public safety workers. Attorneys for the Legislature and state agencies countered that the exemptions are legal, have already been upheld by other courts, and that the case should be dismissed.

But Frost sided with the unions in July, saying the law violates equal protection guarantees in the Wisconsin Constitution by dividing public employees into “general” and “public safety” employees. He ruled that general employee unions, like those representing teachers, can not be treated differently from public safety unions that were exempt from the law.

His ruling Monday delineated the dozens of specific provisions in the law that must be struck.

Wisconsin Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said he looked forward to appealing the ruling.

“This lawsuit came more than a decade after Act 10 became law and after many courts rejected the same meritless legal challenges,” Vos said in a statement.

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business lobbying organization, also decried the ruling. WMC President Kurt Bauer called Act 10 “a critical tool for policymakers and elected officials to balance budgets and find taxpayer savings.”

The Legislature said in court filings that arguments made in the current case were rejected in 2014 by the state Supreme Court. The only change since that ruling is the makeup of Wisconsin Supreme Court, attorneys for the Legislature argued.

The Act 10 law effectively ended collective bargaining for most public unions by allowing them to bargain solely over base wage increases no greater than inflation. It also disallowed the automatic withdrawal of union dues, required annual recertification votes for unions, and forced public workers to pay more for health insurance and retirement benefits.

The law was the signature legislative achievement of Walker, who was targeted for a recall election he won. Walker used his fights with unions to mount an unsuccessful presidential run in 2016.

Frost, the judge who issued Monday’s ruling, appeared to have signed the petition to recall Walker from office. None of the attorneys sought his removal from the case and he did not step down. Frost was appointed to the bench by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who signed the Walker recall petition.

The law has also led to a dramatic decrease in union membership across the state. The nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum said in a 2022 analysis that since 2000, Wisconsin had the largest decline in the proportion of its workforce that is unionized.

In 2015, the GOP-controlled Wisconsin Legislature approved a right-to-work law that limited the power of private-sector unions.

Public sector unions that brought the lawsuit are the Abbotsford Education Association; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Locals 47 and 1215; the Beaver Dam Education Association; SEIU Wisconsin; the Teaching Assistants’ Association Local 3220 and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 695.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin unions score win as Dane County judge strikes down Act 10 is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.