A Wisconsin judge has struck down key sections of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s controversial anti-labor law, in a ruling that union leaders say renews collective-bargaining rights for tens of thousands of municipal and school district employees across the state.
“Collective bargaining has been restored for teachers across Wisconsin, for municipal employees across Wisconsin,” declared Madison Teachers Inc. director John Matthews, whose union brought the suit along with Laborers Local 61, a Milwaukee Public employees union. “We are back to where we were before Scott Walker moved to take away our rights.”
Dane County Judge Juan Colas ruled that Walker’s law—which sparked mass protests, the occupation of the state Capitol for weeks and a series of recall elections that (while they did not remove the governor from office) shifted control of the state Senate from Walker’s Republican allies to pro-labor Democrats—violates “rights of free speech, association and equal protection.”
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