Wisconsin’s Act 10 is a 2011 state law that sharply limited collective bargaining for most public employees, raised their out-of-pocket costs for pensions and health insurance, and forced their unions to win annual recertification elections to keep existing. Signed on March 11, 2011, during large protests at the state Capitol, the law was pitched as a response to a projected $3.6 billion budget shortfall.1Wisconsin State Legislature. 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 It remains in effect in 2026 while a constitutional challenge works through the appellate courts.
Who the Law Covers
Act 10 sorts Wisconsin’s public workforce into three groups under Chapter 111 of the state statutes, and your group controls almost everything about your rights at work.
General municipal employees are the broadest group: teachers, school staff, clerks, sanitation workers, and most other government workers who aren’t public safety or transit employees. General state employees under the State Employment Labor Relations Act face the same restrictions.2Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Statutes 111.70 – Municipal Employment Relations
Public safety employees are municipal workers whose positions, as of July 1, 2011, fell within specific protective occupation categories in the state retirement system, plus emergency medical service providers. In practice this covers certain law enforcement officers, firefighters, and deputy sheriffs. It does not cover every worker with “protective occupation” status. The statute names only 5 of the more than 20 protective occupation categories, leaving out groups like Capitol police and county jailers hired before 2024.3Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Statutes 111.70(1)(mm) – Public Safety Employee Definition
Transit employees work in municipal transit systems and are carved out from the general category, partly because federal transit funding is conditioned on certain labor protections. Both public safety and transit employees kept most of the bargaining rights they had before 2011. General employees lost nearly all of theirs.
What General Employees Can Still Bargain Over
Before Act 10, public-sector unions negotiated across the full range of employment conditions: pay, hours, benefits, grievance procedures, workplace safety. For general employees that scope collapsed to one item: total base wages.4Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Statutes 111.70(4)(mb) – Prohibited Subjects of Bargaining
The law explicitly bars bargaining over overtime pay, merit pay, performance bonuses, supplemental compensation, pay schedules, and automatic pay progressions. Hours, sick leave, vacation time, workplace safety rules, and grievance procedures are off the table too. Employers set those terms unilaterally through internal policy.5Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Act 10 – Budget Adjustment Act
Even on base wages there’s a ceiling. Any proposed raise is capped at the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index over the prior twelve months. If CPI rose 3%, that’s the limit. If CPI was flat or fell, no raise is allowed. A local government or school board that wants to exceed the CPI cap has to put the proposal to voters in a referendum, held in November for agreements starting in January, or in April for school districts with agreements starting in July.6Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Statutes 111.70(4)(mb)2 – CPI Limitation on Wages
Contracts for general employees are also limited to one-year terms, so unions run the full negotiation cycle every year with no way to lock in multi-year raises. Public safety employees face none of these restrictions, which produces two different legal realities inside the same government buildings.
Pension and Health Insurance Costs
Act 10 ended the common practice of employers covering the full cost of employee retirement contributions. Every Wisconsin Retirement System participant now pays half of the total actuarially required rate through payroll deductions, and employers are prohibited from picking up the employee’s share for general employees.7Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Statutes 40.05(1) – Required Employee Contributions
The rate is recalculated each year based on investment returns and actuarial analysis. For 2026, general employees and teachers contribute 7.2% of gross salary toward their pension.8Wisconsin Department of Employee Trust Funds. WRS Contribution Rates The employee share has ranged from roughly 6.5% to 7.2% over the past decade, so 2026 sits at the high end.9Wisconsin Department of Employee Trust Funds. ETF Board Approves 2026 WRS Contribution Rates
On health insurance, the law caps what public employers can contribute. An employer may pay no more than 88% of the average premium cost of the qualified Tier 1 health plans in the employer’s county, and must pay at least 50% for employees working 1,040 or more hours per year.10Wisconsin Department of Employee Trust Funds. 88% Tables and Total Monthly Premium Rates Most employers pay at or near the 88% cap, so the typical employee covers at least 12% of the premium, plus the full dollar difference if they choose a higher-cost plan. State employees who have coverage through a spouse or another source can opt out and receive a $2,000 annual taxable incentive paid across regular paychecks.11Wisconsin Department of Employee Trust Funds. Opt Out of Health Insurance
Annual Union Recertification and Dues
Every union representing general employees has to win a recertification election every year to keep representing its members. The Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission runs these on a fixed schedule: by December 1 for school district units and by May 1 for other municipal units.12Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Statutes 111.70(4)(d)3.b – Annual Certification Elections
The threshold is steep. The union needs yes votes from at least 51% of all eligible employees in the bargaining unit, not 51% of those who actually vote. Anyone who skips the election counts as a no. In a 200-person unit, the union needs 102 yes votes even if only 120 people show up.13Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission. Annual Recertification Elections
Unions also pay a certification fee to WERC for each election and must file by September 15 for state and school district units or January 30 for other municipal units. Missing the filing deadline can mean automatic decertification without any election at all.13Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission. Annual Recertification Elections If a union loses certification or misses its filing, the employees become nonrepresented when the current contract expires, and the employer sets all terms unilaterally.
Dues collection changed too. Public employers can no longer deduct union dues from paychecks for general employees.14Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Statutes 111.70(3g) – Wage Deduction Prohibition Unions have to bill and collect on their own. The law also eliminated “fair share” agreements that required non-members in a bargaining unit to help cover representation costs. No public-sector worker in Wisconsin can be compelled to financially support a union. Between annual elections, self-funded dues, and the loss of fair-share revenue, general-employee unions operate on a permanent campaign footing.
Strike Prohibition
Strikes by all municipal employees, including public safety and transit workers, are illegal in Wisconsin. Act 10 didn’t create that prohibition, but it reinforced the penalties.15Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Statutes 111.70(4)(L) – Strikes Prohibited When a prohibited strike begins, the employer or any directly affected citizen can petition a circuit court for an injunction, and once the court confirms the strike is illegal it must issue the injunction and impose penalties.
- A public safety or transit employee union that strikes loses the right to collect dues under any agreement for a full year. Any union that keeps striking after an injunction faces forfeitures of $2 per member per day, up to $10,000 per day.16Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Statutes 111.70(7m)(c) – Strike Penalties
- An employee who keeps striking after an injunction can be fined $10 per day, deducted from future pay. An employee absent during a strike who claims illness has to provide a doctor’s written verification or be presumed to be striking.
- No employee is paid for any period spent on strike, with or without an injunction.
Act 10 also lets appointing authorities fire state employees during a governor-declared emergency if they miss three days of work without approved leave or join any work stoppage or coordinated sick-out. Discharge in those circumstances counts as just cause.5Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Act 10 – Budget Adjustment Act
Is Act 10 Still in Effect?
Yes. Act 10 survived early challenges in federal court and the Wisconsin Supreme Court, but a lawsuit filed in late 2023 by a group of labor organizations has put the law back in question on different grounds. The suit argues Act 10 violates the equal protection guarantee in Article I, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution by drawing an irrational line between public safety employees and general employees. State law recognizes more than 20 categories of protective occupation participants in the retirement system, but Act 10 exempts only a handful from its bargaining restrictions, placing workers like Capitol police on the general-employee side with no clear reason.
In December 2024, Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs, found the classification “lacks a rational basis,” and struck down portions of the law. Judge Frost stayed his own ruling in January 2025 while the case is appealed, so Act 10 remains fully enforceable during the proceedings. The Wisconsin Supreme Court denied a petition to bypass the Court of Appeals in February 2025, and briefing was underway in the Court of Appeals (Appeal No. 2025 AP 000114) as of mid-2025, with the case widely expected to reach the state Supreme Court eventually.
Every provision described above still applies today. If the appellate courts uphold the circuit court’s ruling, the legislature would have to extend the bargaining restrictions to public safety employees, restore broader rights to general employees, or build a new framework. If you’re a public worker in Wisconsin, which side of the classification line your job falls on is still the thing to know.