Kevin Gundlach, president of the South Central Federation of Labor in Madison, said his office phone has been ringing constantly from workers seeking advice on unionization. He estimates employees from .
Since it took aim at public sector unions in 2011, Wisconsin s Republican-run Legislature passed a series of laws designed to undercut private sector unions and keep local governments from raising .
Labor membership in Wisconsin fell dramatically after the passage of Act 10, which stripped public unions of many of their core powers. But recently, Wisconsin workers are demonstrating the staying power of organized labor.
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After years of wage freezes, a union representing 225 UW System trade employees negotiated a 1.81% raise for this year, which ended up being less than the 2% raise their non-union colleagues received.
The seemingly bizarre inversion of what union membership has historically meant for workers highlights the new world under Act 10 and raises questions as to why public employees even bother unionizing any more.
Act 10 severely limited collective bargaining for the majority of public employees and decimated the number of unions through annual recertification votes and other obstacles. But those unions that still exist a decade later are finding ways to survive and even grow their numbers.