Wisconsin’s controversial 2011 law that severely restricted public employee unions, known as Act 10, is headed for a reckoning with the Nov. 3 election and the liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court poised to determine its future.
The law is one of many points of disagreement between the two candidates for governor. Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany has defended the law, saying repeal would place more of a burden on taxpayers. Tiffany also voted for Act 10 while he was in the Legislature. His Democratic opponent Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley has called for a repeal of Act 10.
However, a governor cannot repeal Act 10 alone. Whether its restrictions are rolled back would also depend on the party in power in the Legislature, adding additional stakes to the upcoming legislative elections as Democrats try to take control of the Senate and Assembly for the first time since 2010.
Democratic leader Sen. Dianne Hesselbein, D-Middleton, said Senate Democrats support restoring collective bargaining rights. The caucus is still discussing what it would do about public employee health insurance and pension contributions that increased under Act 10, Hesselbein said.
“Collective bargaining works,” Hesselbein said. “It works for the state of Wisconsin. I’ve seen it work for (Dane County) and I’m really looking forward to seeing it work for the state of Wisconsin again.”
A lawsuit heading to the Supreme Court may also lead to major changes to the law. If the court upholds a 2024 Dane County Circuit Court decision that invalidated parts of the law, it could potentially overturn some restrictions on collective bargaining for public sector employees. The Court of Appeals overturned the circuit court ruling in July, setting up a Supreme Court showdown in the coming months.
The bill’s introduction in 2011 drew as many as 100,000 protesters to the state Capitol and sparked an unsuccessful attempt to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker. A conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the law in 2014. But Democrats have helped elect five of the Supreme Court’s seven justices. They also have held the governor’s office since 2018, though have yet to hold both chambers of the Legislature.
Public opinion on Act 10 remains divided along party lines. In an Aug. 26 Marquette Law School Poll conducted after the Aug. 11 primary election, 54% of Wisconsin registered voters said they wanted collective bargaining for public employees restored to what it was prior to Act 10 while 43% said they want to keep the law as is.
The divide was especially evident among political parties, with 84% of Democrats favoring the restoration of collective bargaining while 65% of Republicans opposed a repeal. Independents were more closely split, with 50% supporting the law and 46% favoring repeal.
Nonpartisan experts say the effects of a repeal would depend heavily on the specific provisions lawmakers change, how court cases interpret it and how employees and employers respond after a repeal.
What Act 10 changed
In 1959, Wisconsin became the first state to formally authorize public sector employees to bargain with their employers. More than 50 years later, Act 10 significantly reduced those rights, changing how public employees negotiate their wages, contracts and other working conditions.
Act 10 largely eliminated collective bargaining for most public employees and required public workers to contribute more toward their pensions and health insurance. It also put stricter certification requirements on unions, making it more difficult for them to remain certified.
The changes did not apply to public safety unions representing police and firefighters, which is one of the key issues being raised in the latest court challenge.
Before Act 10, public employees could bargain over wages, vacation days, pensions, mandatory breaks, promotions, contracts and other work-related issues.
Jason Stein, president of the Wisconsin Policy Forum, said local governments, state agencies and school districts were required to sit down and bargain with unions over these subjects. If disputes arose, they would go to arbitration and mediation. Act 10 significantly changed that process.
“There were these very real obligations that the state had to, and the local governments had to interact with these unions,” Stein said. “Now that’s — for many public employers — that’s not the case.”
He added that government bodies can now unilaterally adjust health care benefits, giving local government employers an “upper hand” in changing some working conditions.
Act 10 also required unions to hold recertification elections every year. To recertify, unions had to receive a majority vote from all members, including those who did not vote.
Stein noted that contrasts with most democratic elections, where a candidate needs a majority of the people who actually show up to vote. Under Act 10’s union recertification requirement, however, nonvoters are counted as “no” votes.
Stein said that made it difficult for unions to pass the annual recertification votes, causing many local unions to disband. He also noted that the only permitted subject of collective bargaining under Act 10 is a base wage increase up to the rate of inflation, diminishing the value of union membership.
“So, it was tough to recertify your union to be the official bargaining voice for the employees, and then if you did that, there wasn’t a lot that the union could actually bargain for,” Stein said. “As a result of that, many unions didn’t even try to recertify; they just disbanded.”
Wisconsin’s public sector union membership rate fell by nearly 29 percentage points between 1985 and 2025 — the largest percentage decline of any state, according to a report from the Center for Economics and Policy Research. The report shows a significant drop coinciding with Act 10’s passage in 2011, with the public union membership rate falling from 46.6% in 2010 to 18.5% in 2025.
Stein said school districts have been the biggest exception, with many school district unions able to recertify and continue bargaining, but they’re still only able to bargain over base wage increases up to the rate of inflation.
What could a repeal mean for public sector employees?
If Act 10 were repealed or struck down by the court, established unions could regain the ability to bargain over contracts and other agreements. However, unions whose certification or organizational structure lapsed under Act 10 could face a more complicated process.
Michael Childers, a University of Wisconsin-Madison School for Workers professor, said already certified unions would be able to bargain immediately while other unions would need to reorganize.
He noted that both unions and human resources staff involved in bargaining would need time to recertify and prepare for the resurgence of collective bargaining.
“There’s going to be a huge gap, even for these unions who’ve been recertified, in terms of they don’t really have any bargaining experience or expertise per se, because nobody has done this for going on 15 years,” Childers said.
A repeal of Act 10 would not immediately result in higher pay or benefits for public employees.
If they did vote to form a union, they would then have to negotiate changes to their desired benefits, pay or other working conditions. Stein said any financial impact would also take time to develop and it would vary across the state.
What could a repeal mean for schools, local governments and taxpayers?
Republicans have raised concerns that a full repeal of Act 10 could increase costs for Wisconsin taxpayers because the law made major changes to health care and pension contributions. The bargaining process itself would also cost public bodies more time and money.
Tiffany emphasized the new costs that would be presented to local governments and school districts with a full repeal, estimating a $2 billion increase in taxes each year — an estimate stemming from a study by the conservative law firm Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.
“(Local governments and school districts) would be forced to make devastating cuts or come back to taxpayers for more money,” Tiffany said in a statement. “Families are already dealing with higher property taxes, utility bills, and everyday costs. They cannot afford another massive tax increase.”
Crowley said he would work with the Legislature, unions and public employers, including school districts and local governments, to come up with a clear cost estimate for repealing Act 10. He disputed that there would be an immediate cost to taxpayers.
“Restoring bargaining rights does not mean every employee automatically stops contributing toward retirement or healthcare,” Crowley said in a statement. “How that works would depend on negotiated agreements.”
Act 10 shifted a greater share of pension costs onto public employees. Before the law, employers covered more than 99% of contributions to the Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS). By 2020, employers covered about half, with employees paying the remainder — similar to private employers who match 401(k) contributions.
A Wisconsin Policy Forum analysis estimated that the increased employee pension contributions reduced state and local government costs by nearly $5.2 billion from 2011 to 2017. The estimate included only changes to pension contributions, not other provisions of Act 10, like increased employee contributions to health insurance premiums.
A repeal would not necessarily mean those costs immediately return to the levels they were at before Act 10, and the financial impact would depend largely on how the law is repealed and what provisions are restored.
Tyler Byrnes, senior research associate with the Wisconsin Policy Forum, said those costs would have to be negotiated. He said there could be increased costs for local governments and school districts because employees and employers would once again be able to negotiate over those issues.
Byrnes said it’s important to note that school funding is controlled by per pupil revenue limits and school funding formulas. Local government funding is also controlled by “relatively strict” levy limits.
“While repealing those required contributions would give the employers and the employees something more to negotiate over, they’re still subject to how much revenue the local government has,” Byrnes said.
Municipalities are limited in how much they can spend based on how much revenue they have. Byrnes said it’s difficult to project exactly how costs would change, but if those limits remain in place, he said it’s unlikely there would be a massive increase in taxpayer costs immediately after a repeal.
“Over time, that impact may increase. But immediately, it’s going to be difficult to start spending a ton more for a school district on employee benefits if you just don’t have the revenue,” Byrnes said.
Hesselbein said if Democrats win the majority they would want to study the school funding formula with bipartisan input before making major changes.
Why Act 10 was passed
Byrnes said health care costs for government and private businesses were rising significantly before Act 10. He described how revenue could grow, but rising health care costs for existing employees could “eat up” that new revenue, creating a desire to address those costs.
He said there was also a desire to address pension costs. The state’s retirement system has been well funded, but some local governments didn’t have well-funded pensions.
“This combination of pension costs and health care costs were really making it difficult to cover the cost of local government, and there was sort of a desire to address those,” Byrnes said.
He also said some believed public employee unions had become too powerful. Union-affiliated organizations had spent heavily on Democratic candidates and liberal Supreme Court justices in the years leading up to Act 10.
Act 10 shifted more health care and pension costs to public employees, eliminated automatic union dues and reduced union participation rates.
What unions are looking for from state government
Julius Shieh, communications specialist at SEIU Wisconsin — a union representing health care, property services and public school workers across the state — said that SEIU supports a full repeal of Act 10.
“All workers deserve the right to collective bargaining and a union, and our state should be protecting workers’ rights rather than attacking them,” Shieh said in a statement.
Jon Shelton, president of AFT-Wisconsin — a labor union representing members of the public K-12 system, state agencies, technical colleges and the Universities of Wisconsin system — said Act 10 had a significant impact on members because it limited public sector employees’ ability to negotiate salaries and working conditions.
“We’ve seen a lot of K-12 teachers, in particular, either leave the profession, or work multiple jobs, or end up even going to neighboring states where salaries are higher,” Shelton said. “It’s really diminished our education system in the state from top to bottom.”
He said he has also heard from workers about how the law affected the way they are treated in their workplaces.
“The biggest thing that I hear from workers across the state … is the lack of professional discretion — the way that workers have been cut out of the conversations,” Shelton said. “It’s been to the detriment of the education system. It’s harmed our students.”
He said the law has affected class sizes and student resources and has given administrators more control over which positions are filled. He also said seniority and experience can sometimes be disregarded.
“Having administrators who are nowhere near the classroom basically mandates which kinds of professional developments teachers and other professionals engage in often means that teachers don’t get the kind of training that they actually need to be able to effectively work with students,” Shelton said. “It’s not an exaggeration to say that student learning conditions have been significantly hampered by 15 years of Act 10.”
Shelton said AFT-Wisconsin believes public employees are entitled to full bargaining rights and expects the next governor and Legislature to restore those rights to public employees across Wisconsin. He said the organization would also want a larger conversation about pensions and health care contributions and wouldn’t expect those to immediately change.
The Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest teachers union and one of the leading organizers of the massive protests that rocked the Capitol in 2011 after Act 10 was introduced, declined to comment for this story.
Crowley has been endorsed by more than a dozen unions including SEIU Wisconsin, WEAC and AFT-Wisconsin. Tiffany has been endorsed by three public safety unions, including the Milwaukee and Kenosha police unions.
What happens next?
Any legislative changes to the law would likely require Democrats to take control of the Assembly, Senate and governor’s office. If the Supreme Court strikes down the law and Republicans control the Legislature and governor’s office, they could try to make changes to address any constitutional issues. Split control of government wouldn’t likely lead to legislative changes either way.
If Act 10 is repealed or overturned, it would not immediately change every public employee’s wages, benefits or other working conditions. In many cases, unions would first have to reorganize or recertify, and employers and employees would then have to negotiate new agreements.
At the same time, restoring bargaining rights could eventually give public employees more ability to negotiate over compensation and working conditions, while potentially increasing costs for some public employers and taxpayers, according to Stein.
Stein called Act 10 “one of the most litigated aspects of public policy” since it passed in 2011, saying it hasn’t been one continuous lawsuit but multiple.
In July, a state appeals court upheld Act 10 after a Dane County Circuit Court ruled parts of Act 10 as unconstitutional in 2024. The case is now being sent to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The lawsuit argues that Act 10’s different treatment of public safety employees and other public employees violates the Wisconsin Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.
“A lot of (the permanence of Act 10) depends ultimately on elections,” Stein said, “whether that’s elections that determine the composition of the state Supreme Court or elections that determine the composition of the Legislature.”
Wisconsin Watch reporter Brittany Carloni contributed to this report.
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