County Judge Strikes Down Some Restrictions on Public Unions in Wisconsin Law

A county judge in Wisconsin on Friday struck down much of the 2011 state law pushed through by Gov. Scott Walker that severely restricts the ability of public employees to bargain collectively.

Judge Juan B. Colás of Dane County Circuit Court overturned the law with regard to city, county and school district workers — although not state employees — ruling that it violated the federal and state Constitutions.

Judge Colás said the Republican-backed measure, which led to huge union protests, violated union members’ freedom of speech and association as well as the equal protection of the laws by subjecting them to penalties not faced by nonunion public employees.

In a statement, Mr. Walker said the state would appeal the ruling. “Sadly, a liberal activist judge in Dane County wants to go backwards and take away the lawmaking responsibilities of the Legislature and the governor,” said Mr. Walker, a Republican. “We are confident that the state will ultimately prevail in the appeals process.”

The state is likely to request a stay delaying the ruling during the appeals process.

Judge Colás overturned the law, known as Act 10, even though the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld it in June 2011 on different grounds. In its 4-to-3 decision, the court rejected a challenge that the Legislature enacted the law without giving sufficient notice — normally 24 hours is required — under the state’s open-meetings law.

Andrew Coan, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, said that while he could not comment on the merits of the case, in general “it is well within the scope of a trial judge’s authority to issue an order declaring a state law unconstitutional.”

The case decided on Friday was filed by a public employees’ local in Milwaukee and the teachers’ union local in Madison.

“This is a sound decision by the court that upholds what we were saying all along — that Act 10 violates constitutional rights,” said Christina Brey, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Education Association Council.

Judge Colás said the law improperly punished workers who exercised their freedom of association to unionize by limiting them to smaller raises (generally no higher than the inflation rate) than nonunion workers could receive.

The law cut back collective bargaining rights for teachers and most city and county employees, but exempted police officers and firefighters. Judge Colás noted that the law hurt the teachers’ union and others by prohibiting cities, counties and school districts from collecting dues from employee paychecks and passing them on to unions, while there was no such prohibition regarding the public safety unions.

The judge wrote that the teachers’ and nonpublic safety unions were similarly situated to public safety unions but “unequally treated” without any justification. Thus, he found a violation of equal protection.

The push for the law led to huge protests in Madison and prompted 14 Senate Democrats to leave the state to delay a vote on it. Anger against the law was so great that opponents collected hundreds of thousands of signatures to sponsor a vote to recall Mr. Walker, but he won that election in June.

Finding First Amendment violations, a federal judge in March overturned two provisions in the law, one barring government units from collecting dues payments for the unions and one requiring that every public employee vote every year in every union local on whether they still wanted a union.