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3 For these reasons and additional ones, the present scenario does not involve improperly contracting away public powers, as the Authority posits in its comment letter. Rather, the cases the Authority cites are distinct, addressing municipalities’ contracting away the state’s sovereign powers. See Adamczyk v. Town of Caledonia, 52 Wis. 2d 270, 275, 190 N.W.2d 137 (1971) (discussing the distinct scenario where a town purported to contract away the “the state’s sovereign[ ]” power to remove certain officers without cause); State ex rel. Hammermill Paper Co. v. La Plante, 58 Wis. 2d 32, 80, 205 N.W.2d 784 (1973) (stating that a municipality may contract away its business or propriety powers but may not contract away its governmental powers). As the authorities in the text make clear, the bargaining discussed here is a method of exercising a statutory power—determining and entering into an employment agreement—and does not involve contracting away any powers, much less the state’s sovereign ones. 4 To the extent that the Authority’s contentions about the practicality of voluntarily engaging in collective bargaining bear on the question of whether the Authority is permitted to collectively bargain, these and other sources demonstrate that employers have indeed successfully implemented voluntary collective bargaining agreements. See supra ¶ 31; see also City of Phoenix v. Phx. Emp. Rels. Bd. ex rel. Am. Fed’n of State, Cnty. & Mun. Emps. Ass’n, Loc. 2384, 699 P.2d 1323, 1327 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1985) (discussing the establishment of an ordinance modeled after the National Labor Relations Act); Ann C. Hodges, Lessons from the Laboratory: The Polar Opposites on the Public Sector Labor Law Spectrum, 18 Cornell
J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 735, 752 (2009) (discussing memoranda of agreement with employers); Martin H. Malin, Life After Act 10?: Is There a Future for Collective Representation of Wisconsin Public Employees?, 96 Marq. L. Rev. 623, 641–55 (2012) (discussing various agreements and models).
Conclusion
¶ 33. In summary, although this opinion does not reach a conclusion on the issue, it appears that the Peace Act includes the Authority in its coverage based on the statute’s plain text. Assuming that the Authority is not covered by the Peace Act, I conclude that it is within the Authority’s statutory power to voluntarily engage in collective bargaining.5
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Sincerely, JLK:ADR:jrs
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5 Your request does not seek an opinion on, and this opinion does not address, what relevance, if any, federal law may have to the issues discussed here. As this office’s guidance has long stated, Attorney General opinion requests generally are not appropriate on questions of federal law. See 77 Op. Att’y Gen. Preface (1988).
