By Steven Rosenfeld
Wisconsin’s recall-facing Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his legislative allies received a stunning rebuke from a federal court on Friday that ruled the state’s Act 10 that stripped most state employee unions of the collective bargaining rights and dues-collecting authority was an unconstitutional abuse of power.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge William Conley, which struck down those sections of the law, held that the Legislature had the right to deny union bargaining rights, so long as that policy was applied evenly across all state employee unions–not just the ones opposing the Governor’s or his party’s policies. In Act 10, Walker generally exempted state police and public safety unions from the bargaining and dues-collecting restrictions.