And the immediate response tweet:
Oh, it’s just a State District Court order that will be appealed, and possibly stayed.
A Wisconsin court has struck down the state's right-to-work law championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker, calling it unconstitutional.
A Dane County Circuit Court judge issued the ruling Friday in a lawsuit filed by local unions. Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel promised to appeal the order, saying: "We are confident the law will be upheld on appeal."
The Wisconsin AFL-CIO, Machinists Local Lodge 1061 in Milwaukee and United Steelworkers District 2 in Menasha filed the lawsuit last year.
The groups argued that the law was an unconstitutional seizure of union property because it required unions to extend benefits to workers who don't pay dues.
And with a very conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court it seems unlikely to be sustained if and when it gets there.
Sigh.
An ‘A’ for effort on the part of the Machinists and Steelworkers though.
Here’s some more of the logic of the suit:
The unions’ civil complaint contends Wisconsin’s right-to-work law violates the state constitution’s prohibition against the taking of property without providing just compensation. The plaintiffs argue that they have a property interest in contractual language that, before the adoption of right-to-work, allowed them to collect dues from even nonunion members at certain companies.
State law obliges unions to represent all employees at so-called closed-shop companies, regardless of whether those workers formally belong to the union. The groups suing Walker say they count on the income they receive from mandatory dues to pay for that required representation.