A judge’s overturning of Wisconsin’s 13-year-old law that effectively ended collective bargaining for teachers and most state government employees has rekindled a battle over labor rights in a state where the first public sector unions were formed 65 years ago.

Act 10, a 13-year-old Wisconsin law that sharply curtailed the bargaining rights of most public employees and eroded the power of unions, was overturned by a Dane County judge Monday. Efforts to overturn the law that put then-Gov.

The 2011 law stripped most government workers in the state of collective bargaining rights and set off protests that lasted weeks.

A Wisconsin judge struck down certain parts of Act 10, a controversial law also known as the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill, on Monday, restoring collective bargaining rights to union workers.

Wisconsin public worker and teachers unions have scored a major legal victory with a ruling that restores collective bargaining rights they lost under a 2011 state law.

A Wisconsin judge overturned a state law that prevented public employees from collective bargaining Monday. The legislation, known as Act 10 and passed in 2011 under former Gov. Scott Walker (R), was declared unconstitutional.

This decision marks the final judgment in a 2023 lawsuit brought by seven labor unions arguing that Act 10 violated workers' equal protection guarantees.