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The Daily Signal
Unions Lose and
the Public Wins Big in Wisconsin
Hans von Spakovsky and James Sherk
August 04, 2014
Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin had quite a good day on July 31 when the
state supreme court upheld not only Wisconsin’s voter ID law, but also
the 2011 budget legislation that severely curtailed the power of public
unions to control the lives and salaries of state and municipal
government employees.
In Madison Teachers, Inc. v. Walker, a majority of the court overturned
a lower court decision that had enjoined various parts of the law and
upheld it in its entirety. The 2011 law (Act 10) prohibited public
unions from bargaining on issues other than base wages; prohibited
municipalities from deducting union dues from the paychecks of public
employees; imposed annual recertification requirements for unions; and
prohibited any union agreement that would require employees who are not
members of a union from having to pay union dues.
Various unions, including the AFL-CIO, challenged these provisions,
claiming they violated their associational rights under the First
Amendment and their equal protection rights under the 14th Amendment.
This ruling represents a huge victory for both Wisconsin taxpayers and
the recipients of government services.
In tossing out these claims, the Wisconsin Supreme Court pointed out
that, as the U.S. Supreme Court itself has said, public employees have
no “constitutional right to negotiate with their municipal employer on
the lone issue of base wages, let alone on any other subject.”
Collective bargaining is “a creation of legislative grace and not
constitutional obligation.” According to the court, “the plaintiffs’
associational rights are in no way implicated” by the law’s change to
the state’s collective bargaining framework.
Union member are not restricted in any way from exercising their First
Amendment right to associate together: they “remain free to advance any
position, on any topic, either individually or in concert, through any
channels that are open to the public.” But the union has no
constitutional right to force the government to listen to what it has
to say – or to require the government to negotiate only with the union.
Furthermore, unions can’t force the government to subsidize them
through paycheck deductions for union dues from public employees who
are members of the union – “no constitutional right exists for the
deduction of dues from a paycheck to support membership in a voluntary
organization.”
Unions also have no constitutional right to force employees who do not
want to be members of a union to pay union dues. Because none of the
challenged provisions involves constitutional rights and public
employees are not a protected class, the unions’ equal protection
challenge also failed under the court’s rational basis review.
The court also threw out an additional challenge to another Wisconsin
law that prohibited the City of Milwaukee from paying the employee
share of contributions to the city’s retirement plan.
This ruling, which removes the last legal challenge to Act 10,
represents a huge victory for both Wisconsin taxpayers and the
recipients of government services. Before Act 10, the Wisconsin state
and local governments could not manage their workforces without union
consent. Collective bargaining meant government unions had to agree
with any changes to how the government operates. Government unions
often use this power to hijack the government and make it serve their
interests ahead of the public good.
Unions in the private sector cannot ask for too much without their
companies prohibitively raising prices and losing customers to
competing firms. But the government has no competition—it has a
monopoly. Government unions do not have to worry about holding costs
down or operating efficiently because the public has nowhere else to
go. Without Act 10, Walker would have to either raise taxes or cut
programs to balance Wisconsin’s budget.
Government unions could live with either option, of course. What they
did not want was what actually happened – eliminating the deficit by
trimming their members’ benefits. Wisconsin government employees must
now contribute toward their pension benefits and pay a larger portion
of their healthcare premiums. They still make more than comparable
private sector workers, but that gap has narrowed. These reforms
allowed Walker to close a $3.6 billion budget hole and cut taxes by $2
billion.
Eliminating collective bargaining also allows governments to operate
more efficiently. Local school districts saved tens of millions of
dollars by shopping for more competitive health plans. The Wisconsin
Education Association used to force districts to buy health benefits
from WEA Trust. This plan charged inflated premiums. School districts
can now spend those savings to better educate children.
Similarly union seniority systems meant Wisconsin schools had to lay
off the newest teachers first—no matter how well they taught. In 2010
Megan Sampson won statewide recognition for excellence as a first-year
English teacher. A week later Milwaukee Public Schools laid her off
because the union contract required her to be let go first. That system
benefited senior union members at the expense of new hires and children
who need the best education possible. Act 10 eliminated this
restriction. Wisconsin school districts can now hire and fire on the
basis of what works best for the children, not the union members. Act
10 means the government can serve the public instead of unions.
Read this and other articles with links at The Daily Signal
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