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Local news, community stories, and the conversations that matter most.
Now, more Daybreak with Brian and
I'm Brian Noonan.
If you happen to pass the Madison City County Building last night, you may have noticed a picket line and a press conference being set up.
You also probably wondered what that was all about.
I know I would have.
Robert Christie is here to explain why he's the Worker Center Program Director at Worker Justice Wisconsin.
WorkerJustice.org is their website.
Robert, thanks for being here.
Tell us what was all the hubbub about last night.
Yeah, thanks for having me on.
The short version, if it's possible to have a short version, is we were doing an informational picket to raise awareness about a really serious issue that is plaguing our community.
And it's not just in our communities across the nation, but it shows up here too, which is that on non-union construction sites, there are many sort of terrible practices that sort of target
Latino workers things such as misclassification which is when an employer classifies someone as a contractor rather than employee because employees have rights contractors don't wage theft in the form of overtime workers not being able to access workers comp and so and a lot of these non-union sites there's some often Latino workers experience some pretty pretty abusive treatment and so we were there to try to raise awareness about the issue in general
but also because there's a particular developer who had a site last year where we have an ongoing case that is trying to build something new in the city of Madison.
And so we were using that as a sort of unique opportunity to try to help a group of workers that were experiencing something and educating the community and the city council and inviting them to get more involved in tackling this problem.
So I know that before we went on the air this morning, Robert, we were discussing this case a little bit.
As you mentioned, 13 workers, before you went into the picket last night, they were owed $38,000 in wages, but you did get some good news before the event last night.
So tell us a little bit about that.
Yeah, so the workers, about 13 workers, they were still owed around $38,000.
And we learned on Monday from the attorney that we've been partnering with that the rest of the outstanding wages would be paid.
So that was really, really wonderful news.
The story is not over though.
There's still one worker who experienced a severe eye injury on that site and has lost vision in his, in that eye and has not been able to access workers comp.
And we shared testimony from him, you know, when he was injured at the time, this was back in early 2025.
He approached his supervisors on the site and they told him to, you know, he was from Texas.
He was brought from Texas to work here.
And they said, just go back to the hotel and run some water on it until eventually the pain was too much.
And several days later, he had to take himself to the hospital and he's practically lost the site in that eye.
So that is still ongoing.
Yeah, so I think here it's really important so I'm not originally from the construction industry and now but I've been in this role now for several years and I've learned a lot about it and what I think
What I didn't know was how complex the construction industry is structured And it sort of gets to this question, right?
So like bare development is the developer.
They're like we want to build x thing But the developer usually hires a general contractor to sort of oversee You know and get the site off the ground and they had hired a contractor called CMA Below them was another contractor called
SCS.
And then there was a second tier subcontractor called Ra Ra Mori.
And they're the ones that hired these workers.
And so to your question of, is this a problem that we've noticed with this particular developer?
If I'm not mistaken, this is the first case that we've had come from a site owned by this developer.
But
it is not the first time we've experienced this kind of problem.
Just in 2025, we had almost 60 construction workers come to us with wage theft or workers comp issues.
And so, and that's, and I think almost all of those cases were from Madison.
And that's just like our little pocket, right?
Yeah.
This is an endemic systemic problem.
And I mean, I think, you know, it's sort of emerged because
A lot of protections in the construction industry were done away with became right to work got rid of prevailing wage And so it sort of became a race to the bottom and one really good way of cutting costs is not paying workers and so you know Yeah, so like the the lowest contractor is the one that is technically legally on the hook, but our whole argument is that there is a kind of
all of the employers on this site have a kind of moral responsibility to ensure that the people who actually build the thing are well treated, paid on time, given access to workers comp and those kinds of things.
And so we're gonna be monitoring this developer.
There's several developers, there's several generic contractors that we're just monitoring and especially for projects that have some form of public money.
So, you know, the intersect departments where this case came from last year had low income housing tax credits from WIDA.
And I think Wisconsinites, you know, and I mean, everyone knows Madison and Dane County has a housing crisis.
And part of that part of the solution is building more housing.
And so it makes sense that Wisconsin, Dane County, the city of Madison would get behind that to try to like encourage more.
But I think, you know, taxpayers want to know that their that their tax dollars
that are being used to build these things are also being used to pay workers in a timely and a just manner.
And so we're monitoring those developers, we're monitoring those contractors, especially if their sites have public money.
He is the Worker Center Program Director at Worker Justice Wisconsin, workerjustice.org, if you want to check them out.
For anybody who might be listening this morning and wondering if something similar is happening to them or somebody they know, Robert, what sign should they be looking for?
And if there's something right with their pay, if they're not getting what they need, who should they be contacting?
I mean, essentially, what can they do, especially when we're talking about
unionized potentially Latino workers who might not feel like, you know, there's people who care about what's going on with them.
What are their options?
Yeah, totally.
Great question.
I mean, so the good thing about worker justice is that almost all of the staff are bilingual.
We have Spanish speakers.
We have French speakers.
We have Swahili speakers.
And so we try to be very accessible.
I'll also say that, you know, worker justice has no authority.
over anyone right like folks come to us learn about their rights learn about sort of the the economic system that we're living in the legal system and then what we give them a menu of options right and so they really get to decide you know based on their um on their comfort level right like how hard do they want to push and so if folks are not being paid right that is a major red flag like you should be getting paid at least once a month in wisconsin um if the pay is irregular
If you're not getting a pay step, if your employer says to you, you know, I'll pay you 300 bucks a day.
That is not valid.
It's either you have to pay people by the hour.
I think I already mentioned not getting a pay step, you know, so like these are all red flags and folks can, you know, come visit us.
We're in the labor temple in Madison.
They can send us an email at info at worker justice.org.
You know, I think those are, so yeah, walk-ins are welcome and we'll get them signed up with an appointment.
They can email us, they can call us, leave us a voicemail.
Like we try to be pretty accessible.
Robert, you mentioned that the worker with the workman's comp claim with his eye injury had been brought up from Texas.
Is it common for some of these general contractors to bring in labor from out of state?
And if so,
Why is it is it because we don't have we're right to work?
They don't have they can be from wherever and be paid whatever
That's a really good question at this moment.
I can only offer anecdotal evidence.
I don't have like a sociological study or anything,
but it's I don't think it is the majority of cases but it is
we've noticed that it seems like there is a slight uptick, right?
It's not the first time that we've come across this.
And a lot of workers from that site were brought from out of state, which is always troubling, right?
For a number of reasons.
And so is it the general norm?
I don't think so, but it's enough to be a little, to be concerning.
I mean, and you mentioned that your footprint smaller in Madison.
But I mean, for anybody listening today, not just when there's a protest, not when it's making headlines, but how do we make sure that this is something that has done long term across the state of Wisconsin?
Yeah, great question.
I think the sad reality is that many people think that
are a law's work.
And the example I always give folks is if you work at a grocery store and you take 500 bucks out of the register, your employer can call the cops and you can be charged as a criminal for theft.
If your employer steals 500 bucks from your paycheck, you cannot call the cops.
It is not a criminal offense.
It's a civil offense.
So you have to file with the Department of Workforce Development, which is, in my opinion,
very underfunded.
So it will take months for any kind of movement to happen.
It'll take several weeks to get assigned an investigator.
It will take months for there to be an investigation.
And even if the determination goes in your favor, your employer can still be like, nah.
In which case, you either have to go to court, so you have to pay money to get your money.
And if you're living paycheck to paycheck, this whole process is not a great option.
Or
it
has to go to the district attorney's office and the Dane County district attorney's office as a policy even though they could do not take wage theft claims and so How you know to your question of like how do people how do we keep this front and center?
I think the most important thing is don't wait until it happens to you There's a you know, there's a really good expression in Spanish it's better to prevent the lament so like
Number one, if you're at a non-union worksite, you need to organize.
You need to unionize.
A union contract brings immense protection far more than what our laws actually provide.
So unionization is the best solution.
But if you're in an industry like construction, as I said earlier, how do you unionize that?
It's a complicated structure.
you know, and if there's so many workers that are being misclassified, like you can't unionize contractors in Wisconsin, you can in other places, but you can't in Wisconsin right now.
And so like, how do you, how do you deal with that?
Well, we think that organizing workers on the job site, but also organizing them to engage with our democratic institutions, right?
Like hold our electives, you know, accountable, educate them and sort of, you know, get them to take action.
to combat those, to disincentivize cutting corners.
Well, we're partnering with an attorney on that front.
And so, I mean, workers comp is also really
Yes.
And, you know, we are still trying to work with the attorney who's in conversation with the company to ensure that that worker gets some kind of compensation for losing his eye.
Robert Christie was our guest.
He's the Worker Center Program Director at Worker Justice Wisconsin.
WorkerJustice.org is the website.
Thanks again for being here, Robert.
We appreciate the information.
Thank you.
Take care.
All right, Jamie, there's more when we come back.
Oh, yes.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
It's 822
good at
that
a
the
We had more Wii games than I could probably even count.
Thank goodness for pawn shops and garage sales because you could buy and sell and trade those things very, very easily.
You could even go back and get some of the more retro, like first out games, but Mario Kart.
Hours and hours of Mario Kart in our house.
Well, Mario Kart.
Great game.
And then
yes.
allow me to play Mario Kart
when
came
And Nintendo actually took the unprecedented decision to delay switch to pre-orders in the United States and blamed the impact of Trump's tariffs and the quote,
evolving market conditions.
I can imagine that was a big hit for Nintendo when they were trying to do those pre-orders for Switch 2.
Frank, you've even got your hand raised for this one.
I think it's... I know.
Fascinating.
I think it's fascinating what we're starting to find out.
I mean, obviously we knew about the Switch story.
We knew about some of the different things that companies had to do to work around the tariffs.
But I think now that the Supreme Court basically called the tariffs illegal and this administration went ahead and said, no, no, no, no.
Look at us find a loophole.
Here is another 10% tariff across the board.
Now these companies are like, okay, we've had it.
Enough is enough.
You've already screwed around with our profits long enough.
We have to raise prices because by the way, for anybody listening, that's how tariffs work.
Again, just a little lesson that the costs imposed upon the companies on imported goods are essentially costs that you end up paying in the long run because the company has to offset somehow.
But I digress.
But I think it's interesting though that now we're starting to hear about this because now these companies
are fed up.
Like they weren't fed up enough the first time around to say enough is enough, but now that they're gonna try to do this blanket 10%, maybe 15% tariff, depending on what kind of whim the president has that day, that this is now a problem.
And I mean, I'm not upset that they're standing up now.
I just wish they would have done it maybe weeks ago, months ago.
That's
my future son-in-law it's on switch and it's a game where you play like with a team and it looks like an old-school game but you have to cooperate it's and I can't remember the name of it but I've had fun because it's very simple you have to but you have to and some of the games you have to work with the the rest of the players and you can have up to like six players and they all have to like jump on top of each other to get over these things and get through a door and uh
It's fun because then you start turning on each other because one person can screw up the whole deal.
And I have not been, I've only been the person who screwed up the deal like once or twice.
I actually, because again, it's very simple to control with the little, the little switch controller.
It's been, it's been all right.
But now am I going to get a switch?
Absolutely not.
I
Network.
Wisconsin wakes up here.
Back to Daybreak with Brian and JB.
I'm Brian Noonan.
I saw this opinion piece in the Journal Sentinel and I wanted to talk about it because new rules across college sports have universities sharing millions of dollars every year with student athletes through this revenue sharing and name, image, and likeness, which are the NIL opportunities.
You probably heard of them.
The rules are complicated.
A number of states have already changed or in the process of modernizing their laws to help them adapt to this new NCAA landscape.
The Wisconsin Assembly passed Assembly Bill 1034, which would modernize Wisconsin's law covering college athletics, which sounds good.
But now it's up to the Senate to move the bill to the governor's desk.
Tim Sheehy is the former president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.
He's a former student athlete at UW Madison, and he wrote this opinion piece that I read in the journal Sentinel that urged the Senate to pass the bill.
He's joining us now to talk about the bill and why he supports it and why he thinks it's good for Wisconsin.
Thanks for being here.
It was a great piece, obviously.
It got me thinking.
Can you explain the current state of the law and what this Assembly Bill 1034 hopes to change?
I can do that, Brian.
And you and Jamie, thank you very much for having me on and airing the issue.
A brief bit of background.
If you'll remember a couple of years ago, players basically are student athletes.
sued the NCAA over their inability to earn revenue or income off of their name, likeness, and image.
And what happened in short sheet here is that the lawsuit had two pieces to it.
One was backwards looking and it went back to 2016 and set up a formula to pay out student athletes.
who had been engaged from 2016 on, the second part of the lawsuit was looking forward.
And what it did was, amongst other things, require universities to pay or put in place a $20 million payment plan for their student athletes that they could use to pay athletes that are paying for their universities.
And that's really the focus of AB 1034.
as this $20 million requirement in a sense comes onto the universities, they're looking for ways to kind of level the playing field across different universities, and they're also looking for a way to meet the needs that the NCAA has described for student athletes.
Well, what it really does is put Wisconsin at a competitive disadvantage.
If we don't modernize the law at handicaps UW Madison and other NCAA schools in Wisconsin from dealing with their student athletes, you know, they want to require third party disclosure so they know what the student athletes are doing.
They want to bring the law in Wisconsin in line with what the NCAA was requiring.
But I think the most interesting and important piece of the legislation is it.
provides $15 million to UW-Madison and then a couple hundred thousand to UWM and to UW Green Bay that they can use to support their student athletes.
In other words, the money goes in to relieve debt service on athletic facilities, but it frees up money for the universities to deploy towards their student athletes.
And, you know, everybody says, oh, this is about the football players.
Well, it is in part.
But football revenue accounts at UW-Madison for about 80% of the athletic department revenue.
That revenue supports another 600 student athletes on 12 women's teams and 11 men's teams.
So it covers a wide range of support for student athletes.
And then importantly, there's the economic impact that comes from that.
If you look at just UW-Madison, I think some 2 million visitors accounted for 750 million.
in economic impact.
So it's not only a competition issue for the university, but it's also an economic development issue for the state of Wisconsin.
It is very much so in terms of, in a sense if you want to look at this, giving the students who are workers, giving those workers rights, making sure that we're aligned with other states
And the revenue provision is similar to what other states have been doing.
You know, I thought this might be controversial and I'm sure it is to some audiences, but I have seen very few pieces of legislation pass the state assembly 97 to one.
So the hope is that the Senate will take this up.
They have a short window of session left in March.
So the urgency I think is really timing around this.
issue of getting it through the Senate and on the Governor's desk.
He is the former president of Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.
He was also a student athlete at the University of Wisconsin.
He wrote an opinion piece in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on NIL rules and AB 1034, which is what we're talking about this morning.
Now, Tim, with your background, you spent decades, almost more than 30 years working in economic development throughout the city of Milwaukee.
So from your perspective, when we're looking at a bill like
maybe 1034, how big of an economic driver are these, are college athletics for a state like Wisconsin?
Yeah, I touched on it a little bit and it's a good question, but let's just try to break this down and take one home game at UW Madison, which generates about 19 million in economic impact and supports roughly 5,600 jobs in direct and indirect impact.
So the economics of this are a part of
why AB 1034 is important to keep athletics competitive, but it's not just the economics on game day, it's also the economics for the university.
Like it or not, athletics become a front door to how people see universities, how universities get exposed, how they attract students and graduates.
So it's really an important part of the whole mix of helping, if you will, sell Wisconsin as a place to locate.
and as a place to come as a student.
Sure, in addition to the spending that goes on, I think really the focus here in part is on the 600 student athletes who benefit from this.
You know, back in my day when I went, and I was in a non-revenue sport baseball, you got, you know, some tuition and some books.
Fast forward, I look at my son who played football at Wisconsin for four years, and he got tuition and books.
But a lot of students come there, and while the scholarship is incredibly important,
They don't have other resources to support themselves.
And
so kind of beyond that, we now have college athletics as a major industry.
So I think in part of this is just giving the students the support and the rights to access some of the revenue through name, image, and lightness.
But you also have to balance this out now with the university's ability to afford that and compete with other schools that are doing this.
So kind of you wrap that all together and that's why AB 1034 is an important piece of legislation.
Earlier in our conversation this morning, you mentioned that a lot of people are concerned because this would just benefit the football program.
And you're saying that this wouldn't benefit just one sport.
So explain to us how a program like this would benefit student athletes across multiple programs.
Yeah, I mean one great example is you know, we just finished the Olympics there were 12 women who played College hockey for Wisconsin I think six on the you know winning UW winning USA team five on the Canadian team and one on the Swedish team So all those women are student-athletes.
They're participating in a sport that doesn't generate revenue and so by making sure that
Wisconsin's football program is competitive.
It again drives 80% of the revenue for the athletic department budget.
That revenue is then spent out, if you will, to provide scholarships and support to 600 student athletes who are in sports, getting their degree, competing, but their specific sport may not generate the revenue they need to cover the costs of operating that sport.
So if you think about it,
football, a little bit of basketball, cover another 22 or 23 division one athletic programs at UW Madison.
Are you still do you still hear from people, Tim?
You know, when when this whole NIL thing was first started, there were people who argued that, you know, athlete, they're already getting scholarships.
But you know, the old the old arguments, do you still hear from people like that?
And especially as a former student athlete,
It's it's important to reiterate that a lot of these kids even if they get a scholarship They can't earn money any other way because of their practice schedule and games and everything else I'm I'm always amazed by people and I wonder if it's still that's still an argument
Yeah, it is and look these kids have worked hard They've earned the scholarship and and other students I know struggle to go to the university But this is kind of part of that mix of keeping Wisconsin and attractive
a competitive place to go as a university.
So it is a real challenge and this legislation is going to help Wisconsin compete going forward.
Now, we don't have time to get into where NIL is going forward, but right now it's the Wild West.
And you have a lot of money being spent, you have new rules and regulations coming in and a lot needs to happen, I think, until this all settles out.
So I think in the process,
Again, this legislation is important to help Wisconsin as the whole discussion about paying college athletes moves forward and settles itself out.
He is the former president of Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.
He wrote an opinion piece in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the NIL rules and AB 1030 that is now currently in the Senate, the state Senate.
In your last answer, we were talking a little bit about the landscape of Wisconsin and bringing student athletes here.
If the Senate fails to pass this bill.
before they decide to end session for the year.
Could that, and really fall behind the NIL landscape, could that essentially start affecting recruiting and the ability to attract top athletes to continue growing these programs?
Yeah, very definitely it could.
As we noted, other states are doing this.
It gives Wisconsin less of a chance to be competitive on the field.
And frankly, it's going to give fewer students a chance to get on the field in their respective sports.
So this is really important, again, to the 600 student athletes, to the university as a whole.
And it helps Wisconsin, again, compete as we start to settle out what is, looks to everybody else like the Wild West of college athletics.
But it is really an important piece of legislation.
It went through the assembly with tremendous support and our hope, again, in the short period left in
marches that the Senate will act on this and keep Wisconsin competitive, not only in the Big Ten, but across the country.
Well, Tim, you made a statement and we're wrapping up, but I just wanted to put this in because I found it a great sentence that the athletics are the front door of a university.
So people start watching, and that's it.
And yes, Wisconsin is a research university, but there's so much more.
Tim, thank you for being here.
We appreciate the time.
We appreciate your opinion.
And have a great rest of your day.
When we come back, there is a whole lot more because, Jamie, as you know, this is Daybreak.
And I'm Brian Noonan.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website,
civicmedia.us.
I've never heard
it until I found
never heard of it, and I'm in their target demographic.
What would you put as your top five bar cities in the United States?
New York is one.
Certainly New York City is one.
Good question, man.
You got me thinking, buddy.
I've been doing media for two weeks now.
You got me thinking more than anybody.
I'm proud of you, buddy.
St.
Louis is a great bar town.
Nice.
I think it's because of the Anne House of Bush Roots and Same Day Beer.
Are you familiar with Same Day
Beer?
Yeah,
yeah.
I think St.
Louis is a great, great bar town.
You know, I do.
I think that Atlanta, where I have now three Tafer's Taverns in Atlanta, is a great bar town.
That's amazing.
Really good bar town.
Sort of an elegant bar town,
a hip
kind of a bar town.
Those are three.
I would go back and say Chicago's a good bar town.
Chicago's a great bar town.
Yeah, good local bars.
Also a great theme restaurant town, but Chicago's a great food and beverage town across the board, so that would be four.
And I would have to say for five, this one might surprise you, Milwaukee.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, that's just... Milwaukee has the greatest bar association in the world, the Tavern Association for the state of Wisconsin is the most active and most incredible bar organization in the country.
a very hip bar culture in the state of Wisconsin.
any form in the state of Wisconsin But that that goes beyond but he's right, you know, so he made an interesting comment about the tavern League of Wisconsin of the state and
They represent about 5,000 bars and restaurants all across Wisconsin.
Founded back in 1935, one of their biggest programs is Safe Ride.
They actually offer free rides home for people who have been drinking to help prevent drunk driving.
They launched that back in 2004.
The Tavern League of Wisconsin says that that has helped contribute to a 44% decline in OWI convictions in Wisconsin since 2007.
So not too shabby.
They also bring in millions of dollars.
every year.
They also lobby at the state legislator.
everybody
with the proliferation of taverns and bars and pub, everything across Wisconsin, they do it.
Now Bar Rescue has come to Milwaukee a couple of times.
In 2014, they rescued Why Not Three and Paki's Irish Pub, both have since closed.
And then in 2025, Dak Shack, which rebranded as Royal Street and Tropic on Water were featured.
in one of the prime areas where everything is very walkable.
I never in my life anticipated spending this much time in Milwaukee or being involved in any sort of culture or like going to places in Milwaukee until my kid decided that's where he was gonna, you know, plant his flag for right now.
So I will say this, the bar scene,
is hella fun in Milwaukee.
I don't care what age you are, it is a good time.
They know how to treat you when you walk in there.
They know what food complements their alcoholic beverages of choice.
I will say that I've had a good time at some of Milwaukee's bars and I'm not as same to shave.
Wait a minute, isn't this the
Don't bother me.
bar
the way up
it doesn't matter
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