By Steve Gunn
EAGnews.org

MADISON, Wis. – One court challenge defeated, one to go.

That’s the situation in Wisconsin following Friday’s decision by a federal appeals court to uphold all the provisions of Act 10, Gov. Scott Walker’s law curtailing public sector union privileges.

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The 2-1 decision from the three-judge panel overturned a 2012 ruling by a Milwaukee federal judge, who struck down parts of the law.

The federal lawsuit was filed by seven of the state’s largest public sector unions, including the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest teachers union. They alleged that three provision of the law violated the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution – limits on collective bargaining, a requirement for annual union recertification votes, and a prohibition of payroll deduction of union dues.

Those arguments were dismissed by the federal appeals court, which gave Act 10 a clean bill of constitutional health.

That leaves a state lawsuit as the final legal challenge to Act 10. Last fall a little known Dane County Circuit Judge caused a stir by declaring several provisions of the law unconstitutional and putting them on hold until the appeals process is completed.

That lawsuit is currently being challenged before the state Court of Appeals, and will probably go all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Most observers believe the right-leaning court will eventually give the law full legal clearance and end the Big Labor challenge, once and for all.

As an editorial in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel put it, the decision “is a very big win for the governor and his Republican allies … it now appears far more likely that the law will survive its court challenges.”

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That would be very good news for Wisconsin public schools. Act 10 gave them the much needed ability to escape from the expensive cycle of collective bargaining and reel in runaway labor costs. That ability allowed districts to save money to offset recent cuts in state aid that resulted from the current recession.

For the first time in years, elected school boards and school administrators have been allowed to do what they were hired to do – run their districts the way they see fit. The unwelcome union influence over the day-to-day operation of the schools is finally gone. So is the union’s ability to dominate school budgets, often to the detriment of students and their priorities.

Act 10 gave Wisconsin public schools back to the public. Residents should be grateful that the higher courts have not chosen to overturn this very useful and necessary piece of legislation.