Did you know that public sector workers in Wisconsin have more expansive collective bargaining rights than federal workers even after the passage of Act 10? Or that Virginia has flourished in the years since a Democratic governor, Doug Wilder, signed a law that prohibited collective bargaining for public employees? If you do know those things, my strong suspicion is that you didn’t learn them from the coverage of Act 10 and Gov. Walker’s tenure in the nation’s most widely-read news outlets.

We have heard, and we will continue to hear, a great deal about how Gov. Walker’s allies poured a great deal of money into the recall election. But is it fair to pay any attention to the resources devoted to the first round of state senate recalls, the Wisconsin Supreme Court elections, or the earned media associated with the massive protests that rocked Madison last year? The opportunity cost associated with the large number of teachers and other public employees who claimed sick days to make their voices heard was considerable, and of course these costs were borne by Wisconsin taxpayers. Can we count that money as a campaign expenditure?

The unions are disciplined organizations that could deploy tens of thousands of workers directly impacted by Act 10 to canvass neighborhoods and to engage in voter contact. On the other side, you had taxpayers with diffuse interests, some small number of whom were sufficiently motivated to engage in the same kind of activity — taking time away from more remunerative pursuits, or from their friends and family. This seems like a fairly significant advantage, given the importance of having highly motivated cadres.

My sense is that Gov. Walker and his allies were at a serious disadvantage in their efforts to reduce the power public workers have over the policymaking process. Yet many citizens across Wisconsin and across the country recognized this and decided to do what they could to redress the imbalance.

Though I imagine there are many who will disagree, I think of Act 10 as a valuable tool on behalf of public workers. Not all public workers, obviously, but certainly the public workers who didn’t feel as though they were getting their money’s worth from the mandatory dues that were debited from their paychecks every two weeks or every month, or those who wanted management to come in and revise work rules that kept them from doing their best on behalf of their students or the folks streaming through the DMV.

I don’t think Gov. Walker is a saint. I definitely don’t agree with him on every policy issue. But this election struck me as an important one. As I was contemplating the results, a sign from way back in February of 2011 came to mind. Opponents of the budget repair bill had been coming out in force all week to flex their muscles, but by the weekend counter-protesters showed up, including one who waved a sign that read, “Sorry, we’re late Scott. We work for a living.”

But advocates of public sector reform should absolutely not get complacent.