The Wisconsin Supreme Court has declined a petition made by UW Health regarding the UW Health nurses’ attempts at receiving union recognition. The petition, made in December 2022, requested the Supreme Court for an expedited court decision.
In November 2022, the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission decided UW Health is not required to recognize the nurses’ union because the health system is not covered by the Employment Peace Act.
Following this decision, UW Health nurses appealed WERC’s decision to the Dane County Circuit Court in December 2022. This case is currently ongoing and is separate from the case with the Wisconsin Supreme Court, free lance communications director David Bates said in an email statement to the Badger Herald.
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The health system is now working with SEIU, the union that represents the nurses, to find quick and legal answers to these unionization requests, according to the UW Health statement.
UW Health nurses have made efforts to organize since 2019 with help from SEIU. When the nurses’ last union contract ended in 2014, the health system prevented them from creating a new one by citing a 2011 state law eliminating collective bargaining rights, according to The Cap Times.
University of Wisconsin Labor Education professor Michael Childers said the nurses have responded to this barrier by pushing for voluntary recognition. This means the nurses want UW Health to recognize their union based on majority support, Childers said.
Childers said the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s declining of the case doesn’t necessarily change anything for the nurses.
“[The nurses] are going to continue to try to work together with the administrators the best they can and confer now,” Childers said. “Ultimately, their goal is to have a legally recognized union and to bargain contracts again with the hospital.”
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UW Health nurses made a statement praising the court’s rejection of the expedition petition. They believed the health system was trying to cheat the regular legal process, according to The Cap Times.
Childers said the case will eventually end up in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. UW Health tried to shorten the process, and the court declined to do so, he said.
“What the [Wisconsin Supreme Court] said was, we’re not going to take it expedited, it needs to proceed through the courts in the normal manner,” Childers said. “It isn’t necessarily that it won’t end up at the Supreme Court. It’s just there.”
Editor’s Note: This article was updated to include David Bates’ email statement and to more accurately reflect the petition made by UW Health and the difference between the Supreme Court case and the Dane County Circuit Court case.
