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Milwaukee Area Technical College's education professionals voted overwhelmingly this week to recertify their union, despite Gov. Scott Walker's signature labor legislation in 2011 prohibiting the union from bargaining beyond wages.

"They understand the value of having a collective voice and representation, even in the environment where you can't bargain anything but wages," said Michael Rosen, an economics instructor and president of AFT Local 212, which represents MATC's 1,500 faculty, counselors and professional staff.

Since Act 10 passed, many unions have lost their official status and seen their ranks of paid members thinned. In addition to restricting bargaining to wages, Act 10 required yearly votes for unions to remain certified and ended the practice of automatic dues deduction from workers' paychecks.

Rosen said 83% of AFT Local 212's members currently pay dues.

Act 10, introduced immediately after Walker's election in 2010, requires a yes vote from 51% of all eligible voters to win a union certification election.

In the MATC union vote this week, 96% of individuals in all groups represented voted to recertify the union, according to Rosen.

Local 212 was organized in 1930 in the middle of the Great Depression, according to Rosen. He said it was the first higher education local in the nation to successfully negotiate a labor agreement after Wisconsin's public sector unions won collective bargaining rights in 1959.