A Wisconsin appeals court voted 2-1 to reverse a lower-court ruling against Act 10, leaving the state's 2011 restrictions on public-sector bargaining in force. The decision preserved the status quo while reopening a fight that has shaped Wisconsin politics and public employment for 15 years. The three-judge state appeals panel reversed a December 2024 decision that had found major parts of Act 10 unconstitutional.
Act 10 limits most public employees to bargaining over base-wage increases no greater than inflation and changed benefit and union-certification rules. The current lawsuit argues that exemptions for some police, firefighters and other public-safety workers violate equal-protection guarantees. Act 10 prompted weeks of protests in 2011 and an unsuccessful attempt to recall then-Governor Scott Walker.
The appeals majority said the Legislature had a rational basis for distinguishing categories of public employees. The dissent said the distinctions were arbitrary and agreed with the lower court's constitutional analysis. Earlier state and federal challenges to the law failed, though the current case uses a distinct equal-protection theory.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is controlled by liberal justices, and the unions are expected to seek further review.
The remaining evidentiary limit is specific: The appeals decision did not end the litigation, and no schedule or final jurisdictional decision from the Wisconsin Supreme Court was available. The next records expected to change the factual picture are whether the unions file a petition for state supreme court review and whether the court addresses recusal requests or the merits directly. Until those records appear, the attributed figures, filings and official descriptions remain the most current public account and may be revised by the institutions that produced them. Each figure refers to the date and scope identified above; it does not imply a later total or broader category. Subsequent orders, filings, datasets or official updates can revise those figures without changing the documented sequence of events at the cutoff.