The Insider Route in Wisconsin
This chapter traces the development of the first statewide public-sector collective bargaining legislation in Wisconsin in 1959 and the campaign waged by municipal employees there. The case for public-sector rights lacked the fanfare of the campaigns in Indiana and Ohio, though it was clearly shaped by the political winds surrounding these efforts. Well before the upsurge of civil rights–inspired public-sector organizing in the 1960s and 1970s, bargaining rights in Wisconsin were rooted in the 1950s fights over labor rights. The success of the public-sector union campaign in Wisconsin is mostly a story of political opportunity. It was after more than a decade of public-sector advocates organizing and introducing bills in the legislature, and after the overreach of business activists on right-to-work in the region, that dissension within the Republican Party and between party leaders and business circles provided the opening that activists needed.