The Journal-Sentinel reports that several union organizations in Wisconsin have filed suit in federal court seeking to overturn the controversial limits on collective bargaining by public sector unions enacted in Wisconsin. A Wisconsin AFL-CIO release explains the basis for the suit:
The lawsuit charges that the Budget Repair Bill violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution by stripping away basic rights to bargain, organize and associate for the purpose of engaging in union activity, which have been in place for the last half century.
The suit contends that it is a violation of the U.S. Constitution for a legislature to discriminate among classes of public employees, particularly when doing so does not advance legitimate policy objectives but instead simply rewards political allies and punishes political opponents.
This sounds like quite a stretch to me, but I’ll be interested to see what arguments in support of these claims the unions make in their briefs.