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Federal court rejects right-to-work challenge

By: Dan Shaw, [email protected]//September 26, 2016//

Federal court rejects right-to-work challenge

By: Dan Shaw, [email protected]//September 26, 2016//

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Citing case law set in Indiana, a federal court has rejected an attempt by two International Union of Operating Engineers locals to have Wisconsin’s right-to-work law knocked down in court.

U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller of the Eastern District of Wisconsin handed down an order Monday rejecting the challenge of Wisconsin’s right-to-work legislation and refusing to place a preliminary injunction on the law. The plaintiffs in the case, locals 139 and 420 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, argued in part that the right-to-work law has unconstitutionally deprived them of the ability to collect fees to cover the cost of bargaining on behalf of employees at unionized companies.

The arguments were similar to those put forward by the plaintiffs in a separate right-to-work challenge being fought in state courts. The Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, United Steelworkers District 2 of Menasha and Machinists Local Lodge 1061 of Milwaukee sued the state last year shortly after the adoption of the right-to-work law.

The unions in the state case contend they had a property interest in the “fair-share fees” that, before the state’s adoption of right to work, they were able to collect from certain non-union members at unionized companies. Those fees were meant to pay for the bargaining that the labor organizations did on behalf of those employees but were to stop short of covering any union political activities.

Union officials have expressed concerns that right-to-work laws tempt employees to become free-riders. In other words, when employees no longer have to contribute union fees, some will simply choose to not pay for the bargaining that labor groups must still do on their behalf.

Dane County Judge William Foust agreed with the plaintiffs in April and found that Wisconsin’s right-to-work law would give rise to an unconstitutional “taking” of unions’ property. The state responded with an appeal and eventually won a stay that put right to work back in effect until the question of its constitutionality could be decided by a higher court.

In the separate case in federal court, Judge Stadtmueller relied heavily on a decision that the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals reached in 2014 in a case challenging Indiana’s similar right-to-work law. In Sweeney v. Pence, the court found that Indian’s law was consistent with the National Labor Relations Act, which governs various conditions of employment throughout the country.

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