The Wisconsin Supreme Court is set to decide whether UW Health must recognize a revived nurses’ union, a dispute that stems from the loss of collective bargaining rights under Act 10, the 2011 law signed by former Gov. Scott Walker, according to a report from the Wisconsin State Journal. UW Health stopped recognizing the union in 2014 when the last contract expired.
In 2022, the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission ruled that UW Health is not required to recognize a nurses’ union. The decision is based on Act 10, which not only restricted public sector bargaining but also removed UW Hospital from the Wisconsin Employment Peace Act — a law that governs private-sector unions.
UW Health officials argue that when UW Hospital became a separate public authority from UW–Madison in 1995, the state Legislature placed the hospital and many of its employees, including nurses, under the Peace Act. However, some hospital workers remained state employees covered by state labor laws.
In 2011, Act 10 changed that by removing all references to the UW Hospital authority from the Peace Act and transferring former state employees to the hospital’s public authority. As a result, UW Health claims its workers are no longer covered by the Peace Act, meaning they do not have the same collective bargaining rights as private-sector employees.
Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul issued an opinion in 2022 supporting the nurses’ union stance that the Peace Act still applies to UW Health workers.
The legal battle has continued despite a 2022 agreement between UW Health and nurses to avoid a strike, with some nurses arguing the hospital has failed to meet the agreement’s intent.
