Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Some Americans known him from his short stint as an also-ran in the race for the Republican nomination for the Presidency. Most on the left also know him as one of the more loathsome state executives around: an enemy of public unions who proudly boasts about his ability to ignore the unified voices of protestors and destroy collective bargaining rights in his state.
On Friday, Walker suffered a setback, as the right-to-work law that he championed and bragged about during his run for the nomination was struck down for violating the constitution. From Crain’s:
Three unions filed the lawsuit last year shortly after Walker signed the bill into law. Right-to-work laws prohibit businesses and unions from reaching agreements that require all workers, not just union members, to pay union dues. Twenty-four other states have such laws.
The unions argued that Wisconsin’s law was an unconstitutional seizure of union property since unions now must extend benefits to workers who don’t pay dues. Dane County Circuit Judge William Foust agreed.
He said the law amounts to an unconstitutional governmental taking of union funds without compensation since under the law unions must represent people who don’t pay dues. That presents an existential threat to unions, Foust wrote.
“While (union) losses today could be characterized by some as minor, they are not isolated and the impact of (the law) over time is threatening to the unions’ very economic viability,” he wrote.
Foust noted that no other state court had struck struck down a right-to-work law on those grounds, but said he wasn’t obligated to follow other states.
Republicans who backed the law dismissed the ruling, saying it will be reversed.
