More than They Bargained For: Scott Walker, Unions, and the Fight for Wisconsin

Conclusion

O n the sunny afternoon of September 14 Jenni Dye crossed the Capitol square to join a demonstration of the Madison teachers union to show solidarity for striking educators in Chicago—a reminder that even states retaining collective bargaining were not immune from labor unrest. Waiting for the 5 p.m. rally to start, Dye checked her Twitter feed. To her shock, she saw the news that a Dane County judge had struck down much of Act 10. Kerry Motovilo¤, president of Madison Teachers Inc., soon showed up and confirmed the late Friday afternoon surprise on the lawsuit, which had been brought jointly by her union and another one representing city of Milwaukee workers. Judge Juan Colás, an appointee of Democratic Governor Jim Doyle, had ruled that the law violated workers’ constitutional rights to free speech, free association, and equal representation under the law by capping union workers’ raises but not those of their nonunion counterparts. Much of the law was struck down for city, county, and school workers in Wisconsin , though the ruling had no e¤ect on state workers. For the moment, local workers and elected oªcials were likely once again allowed to bargain full labor contracts with one another. In disbelief, Dye called her father the teacher to tell him the news and he made her repeat it a few times before he would believe it. Dye also found a Madison school social worker she knew at the rally and gave her the news, moving the woman to tears of joy. When the rally started, Motovilo¤ announced the news to the whole group of teachers and their now celebratory supporters. “Teachers fight, teachers win from Chicago to Madison!” the crowd chanted, invoking the Illinois strike. Conclusion 295 More quietly, though, Dye and many others at the rally confided to one another that they were reluctant to get too excited. Within days, the attorney general appealed the decision, and it seemed destined to be heard eventually by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, where it would face a skeptical reception from the conservative majority. Dye wanted to use this unexpected opportunity for her county to start bargaining with its workers. But with county taxes still under state levy limits and the legal future cloudy, the young county board supervisor initially wanted to go slow. “I don’t know what will happen ultimately but everyone should go into this with eyes wide open that we don’t know,” she said shortly after the court decision. Just six days after the ruling came down, however, Dye sat down at her county supervisor’s desk for a pivotal meeting in the downtown Madison City-County Building, her Apple laptop with its union sticker ready before her. “When I look at all the really important issues on tonight’s county board agenda, I just keep thinking ‘this is why I ran,’” Dye had tweeted earlier that afternoon. It was Thursday, September 20, and the Dane County Board was set to take up proposals to help provide shelter and assistance to homeless residents and domestic abuse victims. But above all, the board was voting on labor contracts that combined some concessions from 1,400 county workers with protections for their unions. To balance the budget, the contracts allowed the county to impose up to five unpaid furlough days. That would cut workers ’ salaries for that one year by up to 1.9 percent and save up to $5 million, a substantial sum. The contracts allowed for the possibility of further savings on employees’ health care coverage. But even when combined with concessions negotiated with unions for 2013, the definite savings so far were significantly less than the permanent cuts that Walker had imposed on state workers through his legislation. The contracts also protected unions in the unlikely event that Act 10 was struck down entirely—in that case the agreements were voided and the unions could restart negotiations without givebacks. The rushed county deals were made possible by the opening that the Colás ruling had created. The contracts’ provisions would keep the county unions in place through 2015, potentially even if the judge’s decision were overturned. The contracts could have extracted permanent givebacks from the union or the board could have likely imposed at least some, under both the law and the likely court decisions to come. If state aid stayed flat, or shrank even more, and the state kept limiting property tax increases, the decision could...