Plaintiff in Case Opposing Act 10 Describes Discrimination and Retalia...

In 2011, the Wisconsin Legislature and then Governor Scott Walker enacted Act 10, which carved up public employees into two categories.

One category, which included employees in police and fire unions who had endorsed Republican Scott Walker for Governor, could continue negotiating contracts over any working conditions as they had in the past.  For the other category, which included all other state, municipal and school district employees, the law placed such severe union certification hurdles and such a limited range of acceptable bargaining topics that it effectively made collective bargaining illegal.

Thirteen years later, a Dane County District Court ruled that distinction to be arbitrary, overturning Act 10 and restoring full collective bargaining rights to all state and municipal employees.

Ben Gruber is a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Conservation Warden and is President of one of AFSCME Local 1215, one of the unions that brought the lawsuit. Ben told Monday Eight o’Clock Buzz host Brian Standing about the negative impact of Act 10 on working conditions for many state employees, and the says that distinction between the two categories of workers was arbitrary.

Web posting and photographs by WORT producer Nicholas Wootton

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