Unanimous Wisconsin Supreme Court blocks UW Health nurses’ unionization, backing Act 10

• The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that UW Health is not legally obligated to recognize its nurses’ union or bargain collectively.
• Act 10, a 2011 law, effectively ended collective bargaining for most public employees in Wisconsin, including UW Health nurses.
• The ruling upholds previous decisions by lower courts and the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission.
• UW Health nurses argued the hospital operates like a private entity and should be subject to collective bargaining laws, but the court disagreed.

MADISON – UW Health is not legally required to recognize its nurses’ union or engage in collective bargaining, a unanimous state Supreme Court ruled.

“When we examine the statutory language along with the statutory history, we conclude that Act 10 ended the collective bargaining requirements formerly placed on the (University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics) Authority,” wrote Justice Brian Hagedorn in an opinion released June 27.

The court’s ruling upholds previous decisions by the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission and a Dane County Circuit Court judge.

It also brings to the fore the lasting impact of Act 10, the 2011 state law engineered by Republican former Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining for public employees in Wisconsin. Hagedorn, the author of the court’s unanimous opinion, provided legal counsel in the creation and defense of the law, and Jacob Frost, the Dane County judge who previously ruled in UW Health’s favor, appeared to have signed a petition to recall Walker over the law

The Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission ruled in November 2022 that UW Health is not required by law to recognize UW Health nurses’ union or to engage in collective bargaining. The union had been formed a few months prior to the commisssion’s ruling, with help from SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin.

UW Health nurses’ last union contract expired in 2014. At the time, UW Health said Act 10 — a 2011 state law that eliminated most collective bargaining rights for public employee unions — barred it from negotiating a new contract. Nurses countered that hospital management — acting as an independent body — could choose to recognize the union and bargain with it.

Fueled in part by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, nurses’ efforts to unionize also followed cost-cutting measures that raised concerns about staffing and patient care. While UW Health administrators agreed problems existed, they said Act 10 prevented unionization as part of the solution.

UW Health and SEIU petitioned the state’s employment relations commission in 2022 as part of an agreement brokered by Gov. Tony Evers, asking the commission to determine whether the Wisconsin Employment Peace Act applies to the hospital. If the Peace Act — a chapter of state law governing collective bargaining — were determined to apply, UW Health would have to bargain with the union.

Both the commission and a Dane County Circuit Court judge ruled UW Health was not covered under the Peace Act and, as such, not required to work with the nurses’ union.

Attorneys for the nurses argued to the Supreme Court in February that the hospital functions like a private employer, and therefore should be governed by the Peace Act. UW Health attorneys countered that the legislative intent of Act 10 was clearly understood to dismantle unions and, despite the fact UW Hospitals and Clinics Authority was created in the mid-1990s as a quasi-government entity, lawmakers in passing Act 10 made clear it was included and considered a public entity.

“Taken together, the effect of the legislature’s changes in Act 10 are no mystery. When it created the Authority, the legislature added the Authority as an employer under the Peace Act and imposed numerous other collective bargaining provisions,” Hagedorn wrote. “In Act 10, the legislature eliminated the Authority as a covered employer along with other collective bargaining requirements. We therefore hold that the Authority is no longer covered by the Peace Act and is not required to collectively bargain under the Peace Act.”

Jessica Van Egeren of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed.

Jessie Opoien can be reached at jessie.opoien@jrn.com.

(This story has been updated to add new information.)