Last Friday, a judge ruled that Walker's Right to Exploit Workers was struck down by a Dane County judge. The corporate controlled Attorney General, Brad Schimel, asked that the judge order a stay while he appealed this ruling. This past Friday, the judge denied the motion and issued a final order calling this malevolent law what it was - unconstitutional - with some strong, straight to the point language:
Foust also emphasized that he believes barring the state from enforcing the law is the right decision, noting that the law creates a misdemeanor crime for anyone who violates it.
“The right of the union to be paid for work it performs is not trivial,” Foust wrote. “Act 1 makes it a crime for the union to require someone to pay for the services he or she receives from the union. Enjoining the attorney general and the state from pursuing criminal prosecutions is appropriate relief.”
In another blow to Walker's attack on Wisconsinites, Walker's scheme to make it harder for people to get unemployment compensation took a major hit.
Walker and the other corporate controlled tools known as Republicans had passed a law in 2013 saying that a person could be denied unemployment if they had been fired for "substantial fault." This means that if the person had made even just one mistake, had one minor infraction or wasn't able to do the job, they could be denied unemployment.
This law failed to stand up to scrutiny in the 4th District Court of Appeals.
The case involved a woman who had worked for Walgreens, but was let go after making eight mistakes in 20 months, or one mistake in every 10,000 transactions. Walgreens denied the woman unemployment benefits and this was held up by Walker's Department of Workforce Development and Labor and Industry Review Commission.
Thankfully, the appellate court saw it differently, probably because they actually care about the law and justice:
Reilly discounted Walgreens’ and LIRC’s argument that the cumulative effect of Oberton’s errors “cross over the line” to disqualify her for benefits.
“Walgreens’ and LIRC’s argument does not have statutory merit,” Reilly wrote. “Repeated inadvertent errors do not statutorily morph into ‘infractions’ if warnings have been given. Inadvertent errors, warnings or no warnings, never meet the statutory definition of substantial fault.
The court also noted Walker's reasoning for this horrible law and the true level of its impact:
Reilly noted that the law was expected to reduce benefit payments from the unemployment insurance trust fund by $19.2 million, the same amount of the fund’s deficit.
Operton’s attorney, Marilyn Townsend, said Operton’s benefits would have amounted to $159 a week for 26 weeks. She said the amount the state had expected to save by creating a new obstacle to receiving benefits indicates that the law would affect “thousands” of people.
“Just think about how many people have to be impacted to come up to $19.2 million,” she said.
Sadly, both of these cases will most likely be appealed to the corporate controlled Wisconsin Supreme Kangaroo Court. The results are all too predictable since this court has shown all too frequently that the only law they follow is the ones their corporate masters give them.
