Estados Unidos de América - Collective bargaining rights of public sector workers come under fierce attack (2012)

In 2011, more than 800 bills seeking to eliminate or curtail collective bargaining for public employees were introduced in state legislatures, and a number of them became law.

The most notorious was legislation introduced in Wisconsin in February 2011. The legislation strips away most of public sector workers’ bargaining rights, limiting bargaining to negotiations over wages only (subject to a cap based on inflation); prohibiting collective agreements of more than one year’s duration; and requiring annual union recertification votes to determine if workers can continue to have union representation.

Despite massive citizen protests that brought out as many as 100,000 demonstrators at a time, attracted worldwide attention, and included a two-week occupation of the State Capitol, the bill was passed by the legislature in March and took effect three months later. Meanwhile, in Ohio, legislators enacted their own anti-collective bargaining law, also limiting public employee bargaining to wages only and, in addition, tightening prohibitions against public sector strikes and eliminating binding arbitration to resolve contract disputes. Public opposition to the Ohio law was so great that opponents were able to gather more than a million signatures on petitions to force a referendum on the measure. In November 2011, Ohio citizens voted by a substantial margin to repeal the law.

Teachers were a particular focus of anti-collective bargaining measures in 2011. In Idaho, legislation was enacted restricting bargaining rights for teachers to negotiations over wages and benefits, requiring all negotiated contracts to expire every year, and authorising school authorities to unilaterally impose terms if no agreement has been reached by a specified date each year. A new law in Michigan prohibits teachers from bargaining over discharge or discipline policies, layoffs, performance evaluations or merit pay, and in Tennessee collective bargaining for teachers was effectively abolished.

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