Opinion ID: 4644353
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Act 10’s Statutory and Legal History

Text: Wisconsin grants public-sector employees the right to bargain collectively through two principal laws: the State Employment Labor Relations Act (SELRA) and the Municipal Employment Relations Act (MERA). These statutes define the rights of public employees and their unions as well as their relationship with state and municipal employers. Prior to 2011, public-sector unions enjoyed broad protections and privileges under SELRA and MERA. Governmental employers were obligated to bargain in good faith with employee representatives over a wide range of subjects, including wages and conditions of employment. Public-sector unions could petition WERC for an election to certify the union as the employees’ exclusive bargaining agent. This certification required only a simple majority of those voting, and the union remained the employees’ exclusive agent until 30% of the employee union members petitioned for a decertification election. Unions could also utilize the state and municipal payroll systems to automatically collect membership dues. In 2011, however, the Wisconsin Legislature amended SELRA and MERA with the passage of Act 10. See 2011 Wis. Act 10, 2011 Wis. Sess. Laws 23. Act 10 divided Wisconsin state and municipal employees into two classes: “[p]ublic safety employee[s],” which includes police officers, firefighters, and deputy sheriffs, and “general municipal employee[s],” i.e., everyone else. See Wis. Stat. § 111.70(1)(fm), (mm). A subsequent amendment created a third class of “[t]ransit employee[s].” See id. § 111.70(1)(fm). Public safety and transit employees and their unions continue to operate under the pre-Act 10 scheme. 4 Nos. 20-1672 & 20-1724 On the other hand, Act 10 subjected general employees to the various restrictions on union activity. First, Act 10 limited the scope of state and municipal employers’ collectivebargaining obligations with respect to these employees. The Act still requires public employers to collectively bargain with general employees over base-wage increases, but it prohibits public employers from bargaining over anything else, including but not limited to other forms of compensation—such as overtime or premium pay—as well as nonwage issues. See id. §§ 111.70(1)(a), 111.70(4)(mb), 111.81(1), 111.91(3). Act 10 further mandates that generalemployee unions submit to an annual recertification election to retain their status as the employees’ exclusive agent, instead of allowing unions to remain certified indefinitely. Id. § 111.70(4)(d)3.b. Certification now requires affirmative votes from an absolute majority—“at least 51 percent”—of all employees in the bargaining unit, not just those voting. Id. §§ 111.70(4)(d)3.b., 111.83(3)(b). Finally, Act 10 bars public employers from deducting union dues from the earnings of general employees. Id. § 111.70(3g).1 We have already rejected two challenges to Act 10’s constitutionality. The first came in WEAC, where we held that Act 10’s prohibition on payroll deductions did not violate the First Amendment. 705 F.3d at 645. We concluded that the unions’ previous use of the payroll system was equivalent to the state subsidizing the unions’ speech. Id. at 646–48. 1 Act 10 also precludes unions from imposing “fair-share” agreements on general employees, which require nonunion employees to pay a portion of the costs associated with the collective-bargaining process. Wis. Stat. §§ 111.70(2), 111.85. Plaintiffs-appellants do not challenge the constitutionality of these provisions in their complaint. Nos. 20-1672 & 20-1724 5 Wisconsin could thus withdraw this subsidy from certain groups so long as it did so on a viewpoint-neutral basis, and Act 10’s distinction between public safety and general employees was, in fact, viewpoint neutral. Id. at 648–49. We also upheld Act 10’s collective-bargaining limitation, recertification requirement, and payroll-deduction prohibition in the face of the WEAC plaintiffs’ Fourteenth Amendment equal protection challenge, concluding that these provisions survived rational basis review. Id. at 654–57. We considered a second challenge to Act 10 in Laborers. The plaintiffs there argued that Act 10’s collective-bargaining limitation violated their First Amendment right to petition and that its various restrictions, in their cumulative effect, violated their First Amendment association rights. 749 F.3d at 634. They also challenged the collective-bargaining limitation under the Equal Protection Clause, arguing that it impermissibly disadvantaged represented employees compared to nonunion employees. Id. at 639. We held that the challenged provisions did not infringe the plaintiffs’ First or Fourteenth Amendment rights. See id. at 638–41. In addition, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld Act 10 in Madison Teachers, Inc. v. Walker, 2014 WI 99, 358 Wis. 2d 1, 851 N.W.2d 337. The plaintiffs in that case alleged that the collective-bargaining limitation, payroll-deduction prohibition, prohibition of fair-share agreements, and annual recertification requirement violated their First Amendment associational and Fourteenth Amendment equal protection rights. Id. ¶ 2. The state supreme court rejected each challenge, holding that “[n]o matter the limitations or ‘burdens’ a legislative enactment places on the collective bargaining process, collective bargaining remains a creation 6 Nos. 20-1672 & 20-1724 of legislative grace and not constitutional obligation.” See id. ¶ 160–61.