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Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Rightwing ALEC Puts Wisconsin Anti-Labor Laws On May Agenda

Michigan's Koch-Funded Mackinac Center Is Bringing Wisconsin Act 10 Provisions to ALEC's spring meeting.
May 1, 2012

With the recent publication of additional American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) documents, new questions are being raised about the source of certain provisions in Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's controversial collective bargaining legislation. Some of those provisions may be adopted by ALEC for introduction in other states.

According to documents posted by good government organization Common Cause, the Koch-funded, Michigan-based think tank Mackinac Center for Public Policy will ask ALEC at its Spring Task Force Summit on May 11 in Charlotte, North Carolina to adopt as a "model bill" a proposal that strongly resembles sections of Governor Walker's Act 10. Those provisions, requiring that public employee unions recertify with a majority of eligible employees (rather than just a majority of those voting) and do so regularly, were considered some of the most onerous burdens on unions imposed by Act 10, and their source a subject of significant speculation.

The Act 10 provisions that the Mackinac Center will bring to ALEC were recently struck down by a federal court in Wisconsin. That court also rejected the law's prohibition on voluntary union dues deductions, which resembled already-existing ALEC model legislation.  READ MORE

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