The Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC) ruled Friday that UW Health is under no legal obligation to recognize their nurses’ union, according to the Cap Times. 

WERC is the state agency that oversees labor-management relations in Wisconsin.

The decision comes after UW Health negotiated with the Service Employees’ International Union, which was in support of the UW nurses’ union, to prevent the nurses from going on a three-day strike in September, according to the Cap Times. As their end of the agreement, UW Health left WERC to decide whether or not they had to recognize the union. 

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UW nurses spokesperson Colin Gillis said WERC should have ordered UW Health to recognize the union under the Wisconsin Employment Peace Act, which governs collective bargaining and labor relations in the state.

The nurses will continue to unionize despite WERC’s decision and they plan on appealing the decision and taking their fight to the National Labor Relations Board, Gillis said. 

“Those are our next steps with regard to collective bargaining, but we also still have a meeting to discuss the relationship with management,” Gillis said. “We’re going to continue to work for improvements in working conditions.” 

The nurses’ primary objective is to increase staffing, which will improve their working conditions and in turn patient care, Gillis said. 

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Unionizing is the only way to improve working conditions for the nurses, but forming a union has been very difficult since former Gov. Scott Walker passed Act 10 in 2011, Gillis said. Act 10 effectively eliminated collective bargaining rights for all municipal employees in Wisconsin for anything other than negotiating wages and does not guarantee bargaining rights for matters like overtime pay, merit pay and pay schedules.

WERC used Act 10 to make their decision, UW Health spokesperson Emily Kumlien said in an email statement to the Badger Herald. UW Health is petitioning the Wisconsin Supreme Court for an opinion on these questions, according to Kumlien.

“WERC’s decision is an important first step toward obtaining definitive answers from the Wisconsin legal system on both the question WERC addressed and whether UW Health could voluntarily recognize a union and bargain collectively,” Kumlien said.