Wisconsin Administrative Code
Employment Relations Commission
ERC 70-89 - Certification Elections for Certain Represented Municipal, School District, and State Employees
Chapter ERC 70 - Annual Certification Elections for Represented Municipal Sector General School District Employees Who, As Of September 15, Are Not Subject to a Collective Bargaining Agreement or Are Subject to a Collective Bargaining Agreement Entered Into On or After June 29, 2011
Section ERC 70.01 - Policy

This chapter implements the portion of s. 111.70(4) (d) 3 b., Stats., requiring the commission to conduct an annual election, no later than December 1, to determine whether collective bargaining representation shall continue for represented municipal sector general school district employees who, as of September 15, are not subject to a collective bargaining agreement or are subject to a collective bargaining agreement entered into on or after June 29, 2011. The existing exclusive representative of such employees that wishes to continue said representation, or any other labor organization interested in representing such employees, must file a petition on or before September 15 requesting the commission to conduct a secret ballot election to determine whether a minimum of 51 percent of the bargaining unit employees eligible to vote favor collective bargaining representation by the petitioner or another petitioning labor organization. If no timely petition is filed, the result is the same as if only the existing representative filed a timely petition and the election resulted in decertification of the existing representative. The procedures in this chapter are intended to expedite the processing of a petition so that the ballots are cast as soon as possible following the filing of the petition, while providing for an orderly and fair procedure for resolving outcome-determinative issues, including which ballots should be counted. Once a timely petition has been filed, an existing representative's exclusive representative status is not adversely affected if the balloting is not concluded or the results of the election are not certified on or before December 1.

Note: In Association of State Prosecutors v. Employment Relations Commission, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Consolidated Case Nos. 14-CV-9307, 14-CV-9658, 15-CV-0501, 15-CV-0328, 15-CV-0329 a Declaratory Judgment under s. 227.40, Stats was entered providing as follows:

THIS COURT ISSUES A DECLARATORY JUDGMENT that Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission exceeded its statutory authority in promulgating the Chapter ERC 70 and 80 requirement that an existing exclusive representative must file a Petition in order to qualify for a recertification election under Wis. Stat. ss. 111.83(3) (b) and 111.70(4) (d) 3 b.

THIS COURT ISSUES A DECLARATORY JUDGMENT under Wis. Stat s. 227.40(4) (a) that those provisions in Chapter ERC 70 and 80 requiring an existing exclusive representative to file a Petition in order to qualify for a recertification election are invalid.

The decision noted above was affirmed by the Court of Appeals in Wisconsin Association of State Prosecutors v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, 2016 WI App 85. The decision of the Court of Appeals was reversed by the Supreme Court in 2018 WI 17.