Walker’s budget calls for 13 fewer attorney positions

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Gov. Scott Walker might be going too far, according to a nonpartisan fiscal report, if he cuts 65 percent of the staff jobs at a state commission that mediates labor disputes.

Walker’s proposed 2013-15 budget calls for eliminating 13 attorney positions, including seven vacant ones, and 2-½ administrative positions at the state’s Employment Relations Commission, which administers Wisconsin labor relations law. A report released Thursday by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau acknowledges the number of labor disputes going before the commission has decreased since lawmakers in 2011 adopted Act 10, which stripped most public workers of the bulk of their collective bargaining rights.

Yet the report contends the law makes certain types of cases more likely to be filed, and it questions whether the governor’s budget calls for too steep of a cut to the commission’s staff. According to the report, the number of cases filed has decreased by 40 percent between 2010-11 and 2012-13, which might justify retaining two of the lawyer positions Walker proposes cutting.

“It can be argued,” according to the report, “that the attorney reductions under the bill are not proportional to the caseload reductions experienced at the commission to date.”

As an example of how the Employee Relations Commission’s workload might increase in the wake of Act 10, the report cites appeals employees or their representatives file in disciplinary cases. According to the fiscal bureau, those appeals formerly had been dealt with in the collective-bargaining process. After the adoption of Act 10, though, they will go before the Employment Relations Commission.

The commission, according to the report, heard 46 disciplinary appeals in 2010-11 and is expected to hear more than 100 in 2012-13.

James Scott, who Walker appointed as chairman of the Employment Relations Commission in 2011, said it has conducted its own estimates about future caseloads and has come to different conclusions.

“I think, under the governor’s proposal, we’ll be working hard,” he said. “But that’s what public servants are supposed to do.”

The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee is scheduled to vote on the commission’s budget Thursday. Calls for comment to the 15 members of the committee were not immediately returned.

A member of the Joint Finance Committee, state Rep. Cory Mason, D-Racine, noted that Act 10 left the collective-bargaining rights of police officers and firefighters untouched, saying those groups still will have occasions to bring disputes before the Employment Relations Commission.

Because of that and the possible caseload increases cited by the fiscal bureau, Mason said he is opposed to any staff cuts at the commission.

“Employees didn’t go away after Act 10,” Mason said. “There’s still going to be disputes, and you need a department to review those claims.”

Scott said the Employment Relations Commission deals primarily with cases involving public-sector employers but does handle some involving private entities, mostly construction or health care companies. He said the governor’s proposed reductions will not affect the commission’s ability to work on cases involving private companies.

Beyond the increases in case filings predicted in the report, legal challenges to Act 10 could restore some of the commission’s former workload, said Marianne Robbins, a lawyer who has represented unions before the commission. In September, the Dane County Circuit Court ruled that parts of the act were unconstitutional.

“The law, she said, “is very much in flux.”

The bureau’s report further stated Act 10 probably will lead to an increase in the number of mediation requests school districts take to the commission. Scott said that possibility arises from the authority Act 10 gives public-sector employers to impose wage reductions on union employees when both sides have reached an impasse in labor talks.

The new collective-bargaining rules increase the possibility the commission will be called in more frequently to decide whether further attempts at negotiation would be futile. An employer would be violating the law by imposing wage reductions when continuing talks could lead to an agreement.

The fiscal bureau’s report also notes Act 10 gave the commission the responsibility of certifying most of the representatives chosen by state and municipal unions. Elections of those representatives, according to the report, have been suspended in response to legal challenges to Act 10, but the elections were held 381 times in 2011-12 and probably will resume.

At the same time, the bureau reported a substantial decrease in the numbers of certain types of cases that used to go before the commission. For instance, interest arbitration cases involving municipal employees are expected to become 98 percent less frequent between 2010-11 and 2012-13.

Those numbers, Scott said, make him confident the commission can perform its duties with the reduced workforce. If not, he said, there is a simple remedy.

“My belief,” he said, “is that if the workload were to increase we can go back and ask for more help.”

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