Dane County Executive Joe Parisi announced Thursday in an email the county is cancelling negotiated contracts for 2015 and 2016 to comply with state law.
Parisi said in the email the cancellation is in response to a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling establishing a firewall, or barrier, between union workers and contract negotiators.
Matt Kozlowski, co-chair of a political party called Progressive Dane, said in a release Parisi is not defending Dane County workers by canceling the contracts before receiving a court order to do so.
“This decision by Executive Parisi is clearly a betrayal of Dane County’s public employees and is an affront to our historic role of defending workers’ rights,” Kozlowski said in the statement.
Parisi said in the email staff considered continuing to enforce the contracts beyond the end of this year but did not want to face “costly legal action and significant financial penalties.”
Under the cancellation, the county will not be able to deduct union dues from workers’ paychecks at the start of the 2015 fiscal year, and workers’ rights and protections will be in the Dane County Employee Handbook rather than in contracts.
Parisi also said he will ask the Dane County Board to establish a wage increase and health care concession in the handbook for 2016.
