Wisconsin Civil Service 120th Anniversary Celebration

media release: Join us to call for a stronger Wisconsin Civil Service. We will gather to have a drink and enjoy a birthday treat. Pose for a picture with a life-sized cutout of Fightin' Bob LaFollette! Meet others who are committed to a stronger Wisconsin Civil Service system. If it's nice weather, we may be on the sidewalk patio, otherwise inside.

Meet supporters from the labor movement including AFSCME and other good government groups that have always supported Wisconsin Civil Service.

WI Civil Service was signed into law on June 17, 1905 by Gov. (Fightin' Bob) LaFollette as a key achievement of the Progressive Movement. It was meant to end the spoils system where public jobs were a reward to political backers. The goal was to staff public agencies with highly qualified workers, in order to serve the public fairly. Civil Service is an anti-corruption mechanism to push back against the corporate capture of public agencies. We need a stronger state-level Wisconsin Civil Service System, a restoration of required Civil Service exams for hiring, and end to hiring outside the Civil Service system for state agencies, and other reforms. Wisconsinites deserve "the best" to serve them in all public agencies, not party hacks or lapdogs to corporations or big political donors. Wisconsin Civil Service has always been undermined by forces that want public agencies to harmonize better with the party in power, at the expense of robust public services fairly delivered to the public. Act 10 in 2011 and Act 150 in 2016 were particular attacks on the WI Civil Service System, but other attacks, and complacency, have left the system weaker than it should be. Wisconsinites deserve clean government, and public programs that will shield them from the unrestrained profit-maximizing madness out there.

In the 1930's, Wisconsin Civil Service was poised for a purge similar to what is happening at the federal level today. Mass firings of expert public workers, and new hiring policies to require loyalty to the political administration in power was expected. State workers organized the WI State Employees Association to defend WI Civil Service, and they did so. Later it became WSEU and affilated as AFSCME Local 1. AFSCME was born in the active defense of Wisconsin Civil Service! Learn about our proud history! It is time again to spring to the defense of what we all deserve, a strong civil service system in this state!

During the Gov. Scott Walker era, a bill was proposed to gut key provisions of Wisconsin Civil Service in 2015's Act 150 that was eventually signed into law in 2016. The act eliminated the requirement for Civil Service exams and made many other changes to undermine the WI Civil Service System. It aimed to make public workers have no career future and to be unstable. The effect was similar to today's OMB head Russell Vought saying he wants public workers to be in a trauma. To hold those accountable who decided to do this, the Wisconsin Coalition to Save Civil Service was created, and organizations joined including public sector unions, other labor organizations, and good government groups including the local NAACP, Association of Career Employees, South Central Federation of Labor, Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, Progressive Dane, POWRS, and other groups.

This event is sponsored by the Wisconsin Coalition to Save Civil Service.

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