With Wisconsin state worker’s given the choice whether to pay union dues, some unions are failing to get enough support to re-certify, the Examiner reports: Wisconsin Association for Correctional Law Enforcement and the education unit of Council 24 of the American…
In a blow to Big Labor's continual push to make forced unionism the default position, unions will now have to ask people to sign up rather than require employees to figure out how to protect their paychecks from unwanted union confiscation. From Pioneer Press' Patrick Marley MADISON, Wisconsin -- State unions were dealt a setback Friday when a federal judge said they would have to get their members to opt in, rather than opt out, to having the state deduct union dues from their paychecks. What's more, the judge did not rule on dues deductions for unions that he earlier found the state improperly decertified. The state's largest unions were decertified, and the ruling -- at least for now -- will make it harder for them to get money from dues. But U.S. District Court Judge William Conley gave unions one beneficial ruling by saying that members who sign up to have their dues deducted from their paychecks can be required to make a yearlong commitment.
Wisconsin Supremes hand government employees, Gov. Scott Walker and state Republicans a solid win; and they completely rejected Big Labor's ace-in-the-hole Judge Maryann Sumi's ruling. From the Journal Sentinel story by Patrick Marley and Don Walker: Madison - Acting with unusual speed, the state Supreme Court on Tuesday reinstated Gov. Scott Walker's plan to all but end collective bargaining for tens of thousands of public workers. The court found a committee of lawmakers was not subject to the state's open meetings law, and so did not violate that law when they hastily approved the measure and made it possible for the Senate to take it up. In doing so, the Supreme Court overruled a Dane County judge who had struck down the legislation, ending one challenge to the law even as new challenges are likely to emerge. The majority opinion was by Justices Michael Gableman, David Prosser, Patience Roggensack and Annette Ziegler. The other three justices - Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and Justices Ann Walsh Bradley and N. Patrick Crooks - concurred in part and dissented in part. The opinion voided all orders in the case from the lower court. The court ruled that Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi's ruling, which had held up implementation of the collective bargaining law, was void ab initio, or invalid from the outset.