Wisconsin Votes to Limit Collection of Fees by Unions

MADISON, Wis. — The State Assembly on Friday approved legislation barring unions from requiring workers to pay the equivalent of dues, leaving Wisconsin poised to become the 25th state with what advocates describe as a right-to-work law.

Gov. Scott Walker, who said before he was re-elected to a second term in November that he did not expect right-to-work legislation to be taken up this session, has since said that he will sign the measure within days. The move was expected to burnish Mr. Walker’s image as a conservative willing to take on unions as he flirts with a run for the Republican nomination for president.

It also further shifts the climate in the Midwest when it comes to unions. Wisconsin’s action follows similar moves in recent years by Indiana and Michigan. Gov. Bruce Rauner of Illinois said last month that he would end a requirement that all state workers pay the equivalent of dues, and on Thursday, labor unions filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate his action.

Though the legislation has stalled in some state legislatures for years, it moved with remarkable speed through Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled Capitol, passing both chambers in a few weeks.

Union members rallied outside the Capitol building in frigid temperatures on Thursday, as they had in recent days, but their numbers were far smaller than the tens of thousands who gathered here in 2011 when Mr. Walker pressed to cut collective bargaining rights for most public-sector workers. The new bill will affect private-sector workers.

The State Assembly, which includes 63 Republicans and 36 Democrats, passed the bill(S.44) 62-35, along partisan lines. Last week, the State Senate passed the bill, 17 to 15, also mainly on party lines.

In hours of debate that ran all night Thursday and into Friday, Democrats denounced the measure as one likely to diminish wages for workers in the state. They said it was aimed, too, at lessening the political power of unions in a state with a rich history in the labor movement.

“Right to work is desperately wrong for Wisconsin,” said Peter Barca, the minority leader in the Assembly. “In fact, I can’t think of any policy that’s more antithetical to Wisconsin values, to our very heritage, to the Wisconsin way of doing business than this bill.”

Mr. Barca alluded to the early 20th-century progressivism of Robert M. La Follette Sr., whose bust sits in the Capitol. “Figuratively, you are taking a sledgehammer to his bust,” Mr. Barca told the Republicans. “Literally you are tearing away, week by week, his very legacy that made this state great.”

But Robin Vos, the Republican speaker, said much of the information spread about the effects of right-to-work bills was wrong. In places like Indiana with similar measures, he said, unions have not shrunk and jobs have grown. “For the people who believe in a union, this is not going to have any impact at all,” he said. But for those who feel they are not represented well by a union, Mr. Vos said, this would allow an option. “I’m going to take my money and vote with my checkbook.”

At times, the atmosphere grew chaotic here. At one point, protesters in the galleries of the State Assembly chamber began chanting as Republicans spoke: “Right to work is wrong for Wisconsin”; “Unions built the working class.” Officials then cleared the galleries.