American Family Children's Hospital, part of the UW Health complex on Madison's west side. Nurses in the UW Health system have been seeking to restore union representation since 2019. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

This report has been updated with reactions from UW Health and SEIU.

Five and a half years after nurses launched a campaign to restore union representation at UW Health, the state’s highest court ruled Friday that the Madison-based hospital system has no obligation to collectively bargain with employees.

Act 10, the 2011 state law that stripped most union rights from public employees, also removed legal guarantees of union representation for University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics Authority’s employees, Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote for a unanimous Court.

“When we examine the statutory language along with the statutory history, it is clear that Act 10 ended the collective bargaining requirements formerly placed on the Authority,” Hagedorn wrote.

The Court rejected the argument from Service Employees International Union (SEIU) that with the Act 10 changes, the hospital authority as a corporation fit the definition of “employer” under the Wisconsin Employment Peace Act.

The Peace Act defines an employee as anyone working for hire other than an independent contractor and an employer as a person — including partnerships, corporations and some other legal entities — that engages the services of an employee.

The hospital authority doesn’t automatically meet that definition, however, Hagedorn wrote.

Hospital, nurses union respond

The hospital system affirmed the Court’s ruling “that the Wisconsin Peace Act does not apply to UW Health” in a statement Friday, adding, “UW Health appreciates the court’s deliberate, diligent and final review.”

In a statement, SEIU and the UW Health nurses said they would continue to seek union recognition.

“While we are disappointed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court decision, which found that UW Health nurses are not covered under the Wisconsin Employment Peace Act, we are not deterred,” SEIU and the UW Health nurses seeking union recognition said in a statement.

“Our fight to restore collective bargaining rights doesn’t end in the courtroom,” the union statement added. “We will continue to explore all possible pathways to restoring our full collective bargaining rights, including seeking voluntary recognition and passing legislation, to ensure that all of us, no matter who we are or where we work, have a seat at the table and a voice in our workplace.”

A 2022 agreement between the hospital and the union to discuss issues of concern is continuing, according to the nurses’ union statement.

Over the last three years, “hundreds of nurses have become official union members and have been meeting with top administrators to address critical issues around retention, safe staffing, and quality patient care,” the statement said. “Earlier this year, UW nurses and management mutually agreed to extend this agreement through 2027. All the while, we continue to leverage our collective voice to elect pro-worker leaders at every level of government.”

UW Health has in the past made statements declaring that Act 10 prevented the hospital system from engaging with the union.

“Based upon legal advice received from both internal and external counsel, UW Health is concerned about the lawfulness of engaging in collective bargaining, which is not authorized under any statute,” the hospital system’s press secretary, Emily Greendonner, told the Wisconsin Examiner in an email message Friday.

“While today’s decision provided final clarity that we are not required to collectively bargain, the question of whether we are legally allowed to do so has not been decided by the courts,” Greendonner said.

Ruling relates Act 10, hospital system history

The hospital system was spun off from the University of Wisconsin in 1996 into a new “public body corporate and politic,” the UW Hospital and Clinics Authority. The hospital system’s employees were state employees represented by unions and with collective bargaining rights under Wisconsin’s state employment relations law.

The hospital authority “is not defined as a corporation,” Hagadorn wrote, “it is a ‘public body corporate and politic.’” He cited the Peace Act’s definition of “employer” that states the term does not include “the state or any political subdivision thereof.”

The 1996 law creating the new hospital authority removed its employees from the state employment relations law and added language specifying that the hospital authority was an employer under the Peace Act.

Act 10 changed that, Hagedorn wrote — repealing the hospital authority’s collective bargaining duty that was in the 1996 law as well as all other references to collective bargaining.

“In sum, Act 10 purged references to the Peace Act from the Authority Statute,” Hagedorn wrote.

“When it created the Authority, the legislature added the Authority as an employer under the Peace Act and imposed numerous other collective bargaining provisions. In Act 10, the legislature eliminated the Authority as a covered employer along with other collective bargaining requirements. We therefore hold that the Authority is no longer covered by the Peace Act and is not required to collectively bargain under the Peace Act.”

Friday’s ruling was the final stop for a case that started in September 2022. In an agreement brokered to avert a planned three-day strike by nurses demanding union recognition at UW Health, the hospital system and SEIU agreed to a joint petition to the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC).

In the petition, the union argued that the hospital should be considered an employer under the Peace Act, while UW Health argued that Act 10 eliminated collective bargaining at the hospital system. WERC sided with UW Health, and Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost subsequently affirmed the employment commission’s conclusion.

2025-06-27_SCOWI-SEIU v WERC

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