A three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ended Milwaukee County’s five-year old “labor peace ordinance,” overturning a lower court decision.
The Ordinance, which was passed in 2000, required written agreements from businesses that provide more than $250,000 in service contracts to county departments.
The agreements were to allow labor unions to organize a contractor’s employees without employer interference. In addition the agreements prohibited employers from disseminating misleading information. For unions and workers, the agreement prohibited union organizers from striking or promoting slowdowns during an organizing drive.
The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce argued that the agreements favored the union’s side and obviated the authority of the National Labor Relations Act. The National Labor Relations Board agreed with the business group.
Judge Richard Posner, of the Court of Appeals, wrote that the county’s claims are “a pretext to regulate the labor relations of companies that happen, perhaps quite incidentally, to do some county work.”
