2011 Wisconsin Act 10

SO I JOINED VOCES DE LA FRONTERA AND I THOUGHT I'D DO A MORE EFFECTIVE JOB WORKING IN THE STREETS, THAT IS, WORKING WITH THE INDIVIDUAL LEGISLATORS.

WE FINALLY PASSED IT IN 2008, ONLY TO BE RESENTED BY Governor Walker, when he rescinds our right to organize by passing Act 10, so I come out of retirement and start working and trying to get rid of the governor and reinstate the in-state tuition.

Jesus Salas, our guest, Wisconsin labor activist, historian, his memoir, Obreros Unidos, The Roots and Legacy of the Farm Workers Movement.

You mentioned Act 10, Jesus, and I would like to know from your perspective how you see the organized labor movement as it stands today and the rights of workers in Wisconsin.

Well, the Act 10 displaced, denied over 170,000 public employees here in the state of Wisconsin the right to bargain collectively for their wages and working conditions.

But it goes further than that in terms of its negligible, its dramatic negative effects on the core of teachers here because a lot of the teachers who had been paid and were waiting for their pensions or had to take a shot at losing their health and hospitalization resigned earlier that is left their teaching core and ever since then there's been a disruption in terms of these older teachers are leaving earlier than they thought just simply to have access to their pensions and to their health and hospitalization.

And a lot of new teachers that are coming in and then facing the last 15 years of the Republican legislature that refuses to fund our public schools.

And the whole charter movement that takes money from public funds to our public institutions starts giving it to charter schools and just puts us in a horrible position.

So-

The 2011, the Act 10?

Act 10.

What's going on with Act 10?

So Wisconsin's controversial anti-union law, otherwise known as Act 10, um, is going to face a reckoning this fall according to the Wisconsin, um, news outlet.

So Wisconsin has a controversial Act 10 law which basically says certain public employees are... uh, public employee groups are not allowed to be, um, a bargaining unit.

So they can't bargain a contract.

Mm.

I'm Hugh Hewitt, America.

Uh, in November, we will be celebrating the 15th anniversary of Act 10, Wisconsin's great leap into, well, all sorts of things.

Here to talk to me about that, Jonathan Williams, president of the American Legislative Exchange Council, great sponsor of the program, alec.org/hugh.

Jonathan, um, you can follow Jonathan, by the way, on X @TaxEconomist.

What did Scott Walker do 10 years or 15 years ago with Act 10?

Well, I'll tell you what, uh, those of us that were following state policy at the time remember those just horrific scenes of the angry mob of progressive leftist protesters out there in Madison, Wisconsin, breaking into the state capitol building, trying to stop the people's business.

And of course, what was the people's business that day? It was Governor Scott Walker's huge reforms to protect taxpayers and get Wisconsin back on a solid footing.

Act 10 was a major package of reforms on labor policy, on fiscal issues.

Um, I was up until January of this year.

Uh, Democratic control means that we overturn Act 10.

Um, on that note, I'm also a lead plaintiff on a lawsuit that's, uh, likely headed to the Supreme Court, which found at the circuit court level that, uh, Act 10's collective bargaining restrictions are unconstitutional.

However, we still need a legislature willing to undo that mess so that we're not vilifying public school teachers for having healthcare while we're funding, uh, yacht gas for billionaires.

So a Democratic trifecta gives us the ability to legislate worker protections.