Judge Rules in Case Over Wis. Collective Bargaining Law

From Michael P. Tremoglie’s article in Legal Newsline:

According to Vincent Verduccio, the labor policy counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., the most important part of the judge’s ruling was the invalidation of the part of the bill regarding the automatic dues deduction and the annual recerticification of labor unions.

The court said these provisions violated the Equal Protection Clause and First Amendment because it was not universally applied since the Wisconsin law exempted public safety employees.

“The law would not universally apply to all government employees,” He said. “The judge did rule that Wisconsin can limit the collective bargaining privileges of government employee unions.”

He noted that this could still be appealed by either side. The court did say it will enter an injunction requiring a return to the procedure for the automatic deduction of government employee union dues for all members by May 31.