Federal Judge Tosses Union Wisconsin Right to Work Challenge

[Geee]

Free Beacon:

A union challenge to Wisconsin’s right to work law will move to federal appeals court after a district court judge dismissed the suit.

 

Federal Judge J.P. Stadtmueller dismissed International Union of Operating Engineers Locals 139 and 420 contention that allowing workers to opt out of union membership represents an illegal taking of property thereby violating the constitution. Stadtmueller said that the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals’ Sweeney decision, which upheld right to work in neighboring Indiana, precluded him from striking down the Wisconsin law.

 

“This Court concludes, under the holding and reasoning announced by the majority in Sweeney, that Act 1: (1) is not preempted by the NLRA; and (2) does not work an unconstitutional taking,” he wrote. “The majority also concluded that Indiana’s right to work law did not work an unconstitutional taking because “the union is justly compensated by federal law’s grant to the Union the right to bargain exclusively with the employer.”

 

IUOE Local 139 president Terry McGowan told the Washington Free Beacon in a phone interview that the decision “didn’t come as a big surprise.” He added that the union is “quite happy” to revisit the case before that same Court of Appeals that decided Sweeney. Chief Justice Diane Wood split from the majority in that case and ruled in the unions’ favor that non-members should be forced to pay “fair share” fees. The union hopes that its case may swing a vote over to Wood’s side.