Collective Bargaining Legislation - Jim Olson and Scott Hassett

Sly- Scott Hassett, Lawton and Cates. Jim Olson, Lawton and Cates. There’s just such interesting timing that we have Lawton and Cates here in Madison, Wisconsin. Lawton and Cates, their history with collective bargaining.

Scott- Well we thought that it would be a good time to come in and talk about that a little bit, Sly. One of the founders of our firm, John Lawton, is spinning in his grave this week. In fact if you were to visit that grave, I bet all of the snow would be melted off of it. John was one of the top leaders in collective bargaining for public sector employees in this state from about 1945 on. He was responsible as much as anybody for writing the collective bargaining laws over a 30 to 40 year period.

Sly- I was going to say that this didn’t all happen under one fell swoop. When Gaylord Nelson became governor, he passed some laws and there were more laws that were passed in the early 1970s.

Jim- Yes well John began working on it in the 40s and every year he made progress. I think in the 50s they even got a bill passed in both houses of the legislature which was Republican, but it was vetoed. In 59 he got the first bill passed.

Sly- With Gaylord Nelson as governor?

Jim- Gaylord Nelson was governor, but there was a Republican senate. It passed the Republican senate. Then in 62 they did some additional work on it. You bring in mediation and fact finding. And the interesting thing then is both houses of the legislature were Republican then. It continued to have modifications throughout the years. And it was generally a bipartisan support.

Sly- As a matter of law, collective bargaining rights are not necessarily ensconced in The Constitution. But basically it says that if you are in a union and you work in a public sector, you have a seat at the table when it comes to workplace safety conditions. Scott, you were telling me that you represented the correctional officers, and I’m not using hyperbole here, some of this stuff is life and death when it comes to safety.

Scott- Well it certainly is and I spent 22 years at Lawton and Cates, beginning in 1980. Now I’ve returned and ironically we’re trying to rebuild some of the labor and employment work there right when this is all happening. I did a lot of work for correctional officers for many, many years. I did a lot of arbitrations, unfair labor practices, issues relating to safety, job safety and things of that nature as well. A lot of that is potentially out the door now.

Sly- Jim, when you have some ground rules and you have a union to deal with versus this being done piecemeal, can it be beneficial the municipality?

Jim- Certainly, anytime that you can get an entire workforce behind something, it is helpful for the municipality to know that rather than doing it issue by issue or individual by individual. I think that by and large over the years employers have found that there are benefits to having a union to deal with.

Sly- What’s the phone number over at Lawton and Cates?

Scott- 282-6200

Sly- Alright. So of course this isn’t just with Marty Biehl and AFSCME Counsel 24. We’re talking about MTI, SEIU, AFLCIO, the United Food and Commercial workers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical workers. We’re talking about a variety of unions here right?

Scott- Sure. Over the years we’ve represented all of those unions and a number of others as well in the private and public sectors.

Sly- Alright, so how did John Lawton get so interested in collective bargaining law?

Jim- Well he started out in municipal government as an assistant district attorney and became interested in public bargaining rights. In the 40s the private sector bargaining rights were a hot issue, and John was always interested in helping out employees and individuals. It’s interesting that he was in law school with Gaylord Nelson and the two of them did practice law together for some time. They came from the same cut of cloth.

Sly- We’ve heard from some of our conservative friends that Franklin Roosevelt didn’t like the idea of public employee unions. Now I’m not sure if that is entirely in context, but my guess is that if the man were still alive first off he’d be extremely old but second of all I’m guessing that he wouldn’t be for repealing them once we had them.

Scott- No that would surprise me very much. I think they are cherry picking on some of those quotes as well. You can find other quotes by FDR that are to the contrary.

Sly- In a matter of law what’s the difference between collective bargaining rights dealing with a private company and in dealing with a municipality?

Scott- Well in the private sector most of that is covered by federal law. And the fair labor standards act. There is overlap. Primarily jurisdiction in private sector unions is governed by federal law. So none of what’s going on here, this week affects that despite the solidarity between the private and public sector that we’re seeing out there in the streets. But the public sector law in Wisconsin is governed by Chapter 1117 which is county municipal and 1118 which is state employees. That came in in 1971.

Sly- There was some labor strife in the mid 1970s right as Marty Striever was taking over for Pat Lucy. There was a little bit of a skirmish and walk out. So then they passed some more laws. We’ve had relative labor peace. We have not had teacher walk outs for the most part. It’s been pretty quiet. Why is that Jim?

Jim- The sides get used to working with each other and knowing what they can accomplish and what they can’t accomplish. I think that is probably the main thing that causes labor peace. In the early years of the labor movement, there will be more strife. After a period of time they kind of know what the ground rules are and they work together.

Sly- Alright so Lawton and Cates will go to work for individuals who have been wronged by their company, right? On an individual basis.

Scott- Yes along with sex, race, hate, handicap discrimination, things of that nature as well. So we have all of those forums. We work for individuals, unions, but of course that’s only part of our practice. Another thing John Lawton was famous for, he was an environmental leader. He was chairman of the DNR board in the 1980’s.

Sly- Would he have been for filling in wetlands?

Scott- Not at all.

Sly- Would he have supported John Wickstrom filling in wetlands?

Scott- My office was next to John Lawton’s when I started out practicing in the early 80s and our doors would be open and I would hear him on the phone, roaring with laughter sometimes, talking to Gaylord Nelson, Tony Earl was governor then, Buzz Besadny was another close friend of his. He was the DNR secretary at the time. John was a leader in environmental matters and that’s another area that we practice in.

Sly- But it’s much harder for an individual to go up against a big corporation than it is for a group of people that are collectively represented.

Jim- Oh absolutely. And right now, for example, of course this is in the private sector but we represent some employees of Oscar Mayer who have just won, all the way to the Supreme Court, their right to get dressed. An individual could never have brought that case.

Sly- And that’s really what this whole thing is about. We may be getting into the issue of “right to work” in this state as well because they’re trying to do that in Indiana. Your job is about to become very interesting at Lawton and Cates.

Scott- Well yes it’s the ancient Chinese Curse- “May you live in interesting times.”

Sly- I have to pinch myself going through all of this because I realize that what we’ve gone through over the last couple of weeks is history. It is absolute history. Alright, what’s your phone number?

Scott- 282-6200