Wisconsin Union Fight Rumbles Toward State Supreme Court
The Wisconsin judge who last year declared the state’s controversial collective bargaining law unconstitutional refused this week to issue an injunction barring the state from implementing the law until the Wisconsin Supreme Court casts a deciding vote on the matter, likely next year.
The law was hailed by its proponents as a money-saver for the state but decried as an overt effort to bust public unions, or at the very least to weaken their power at the negotiating table.
Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colás ruled last year in favor of Madison Teachers Inc., a public union, and another union representing Milwaukee employees. Judge Colás said that Act 10 – the law signed by Gov. Scott Walker (R) in 2011 that eliminates collective bargaining for most public workers – violated worker rights to free speech, free association, and equal representation under the law because it resulted in capping worker raises, but had no effect on their counterparts who were not in unions.
The state appealed and this summer the state Supreme Court announced it will take the case in the fall.
Both unions in that case asked Colás to widen the language in his ruling so that it applied to all unions representing teachers and local workers in the state. He agreed in principle, but this week cited a technicality in declining to issue an injunction that would ultimately halt the law until the high court verdict. His reason: The other unions were not parties to the case.
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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/19/wisconsin-union-fight-rumbles-toward-state-supreme-court/