Facts
- In March 2011, Wisconsin enacted 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 (Act 10), amending the Municipal Employment Relations Act (MERA) and changing collective-bargaining rules for most state and local “general employees.”
- Act 10 limited collectively bargained agreements to one-year, nonextendable terms.
- Act 10 restricted the subjects of bargaining for general employees largely to wages (and limited wage increases in specified ways), while leaving employees free to communicate and negotiate individually with employers outside the statutory bargaining framework.
- Act 10 required the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC) to hold annual union representation elections and conditioned continued certification on an “absolute majority” of the bargaining unit (a majority of all unit members, not merely of those voting).
- Act 10 prohibited payroll deduction of union dues for general-employee unions.
- Act 10 eliminated “fair-share”/agency-fee requirements that had required nonmembers to make payments tied to representation costs.
- Act 10 treated “public safety employees” differently, generally preserving broader bargaining rights for them and permitting payroll dues deductions that were barred for general employees.
- Laborers Local 236, AFL-CIO and AFSCME Local 60, AFL-CIO (and, in the district court caption, an individual public employee) sued Governor Scott Walker and WERC officials in federal district court, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
- Plaintiffs alleged that Act 10 violated (1) the First Amendment right of association by limiting collective bargaining and imposing recertification and dues-deduction rules and (2) the Equal Protection Clause by treating represented employees and their unions less favorably than other employees, public safety employees, and other organizations.
- Defendants moved for judgment on the pleadings under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c).
Issues
- Whether Act 10’s limits on collective bargaining, annual recertification requirement, and ban on payroll deduction of union dues for general employees violate the First Amendment right of association.
- Whether Act 10 violates the Equal Protection Clause by treating general employees and their unions differently from public safety employees, individual employees, and other organizations (including with respect to wage bargaining and payroll deductions).
- What level of scrutiny applies to these claims (heightened scrutiny or rational-basis review).
Decision
- The district court granted defendants’ Rule 12(c) motion for judgment on the pleadings and dismissed the constitutional claims.
- The court held that the First Amendment does not require a state to recognize a public-sector union for bargaining, to bargain on any particular subjects, or to maintain any specific bargaining structure; therefore, Act 10’s bargaining restrictions did not violate associational rights.
- The court held that prohibiting payroll deduction of union dues did not violate the First Amendment because the state is not required to provide or continue a government payroll mechanism to help fund union activity.
- The court applied rational-basis review to the Equal Protection challenges and concluded that the different treatment of general employees and public safety employees, and the different treatment of unions in payroll-deduction rules, was constitutionally permissible.
- The district court’s judgment was later affirmed on appeal by the Seventh Circuit in related proceedings.
Legal Principles
- Public-sector collective bargaining exists by statute; the First Amendment protects the right to join and support a union, but it does not impose a duty on the government to recognize the union as an exclusive representative or to bargain with it.
- A state may limit the subjects, duration, and procedures of public-sector bargaining without infringing associational rights, so long as employees remain free to associate and speak.
- The government is not constitutionally required to assist or fund union speech by providing payroll deduction of dues; ending dues checkoff is treated as withdrawal of administrative support, not a direct restraint on speech.
- When a law does not burden a fundamental right and does not draw a suspect classification, Equal Protection challenges are evaluated under rational-basis review.
- Under rational-basis review, a legislature may differentiate between categories of public employees (including public safety and general employees) if there is any plausible legitimate governmental reason for doing so, including administrative and workforce-management reasons.
Conclusion
The district court rejected the unions’ First Amendment and Equal Protection challenges to Wisconsin Act 10, concluding that the Constitution does not require the state to provide public-sector collective bargaining or payroll dues deduction and that Act 10’s differential treatment of employee groups and unions was subject to, and survived, rational-basis review.