It's absolutely mad that the temporary restraining order was even approved from the outset. No court should be able to compel people to keep working at a private employer on pain of contempt of court, in some perverted form of indentured servitude.
It did not compel the seven former employees to continue working at Thedacare; instead, it blocked Ascension from hiring them until after Thedacare had hired their replacements.
See: https://www.wbay.com/2022/01/20/thedacare-seeks-court-order-...
If that was the case, then why was the injunction granted in the first place? Was it due to some suspicion of anticompetitive behaviour? It doesn't seem that it was an attempt at helping the public keep their access to important medical care, which was the tune that Thedacare was playing for the press.
"Nothing that happens in the remainder of this case, regardless of the Court’s decision on this motion, can force those employees to return to ThedaCare to labor against their will. So the only equitable remedy available to the Court is an injunction prohibiting these employees from serving trauma patients at Ascension."
There was zero threat to access to medical care (which, still, is not the problem of those employees) - both hospitals shared the same radiologists, and some other staff. The same care was available to patients, just at a different hospital, a mere few miles away (and indeed, there's significant evidence to show that even Thedacare's ability to provide interventional radiology wasn't compromised, in that they did not transfer a single patient out of that hospital for IR care elsewhere in the entire timeframe).
That is insane. They were blocked from working at Ascension, but in addition, as employees of Ascension, two would have been required to keep working at an employer they had resigned from, until Thedacare had deigned to find replacements (and who knows how long that would take, as they have comprehensively destroyed a lot of their recruitability - significantly below market salaries, a competitor nearby who is willing to pay more, a willingness to make their employees pawns in a bigger game for corporate revenue, etc.).
> McGinnis had issued a temporary restraining order Friday that required Ascension to do one of two things: Either make available to ThedaCare one invasive radiology technician and one registered nurse from the departing team or cease hiring any of the employees until ThedaCare has hired adequate staff to replace them.
Source: https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/judge-lifts-order-ba...
And confirmed by the court documents themselves:
> IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendant Ascension NE Wisconsin, Inc. shall either: 1. Make available to ThedaCare one invasive radiology technician and one registered nurse of the individuals resigning their employment with ThedaCare to join Ascension (Amber Kohler, Andrew Kohler, Samantha Baltus, Timothy Breister, Kailey Young, Michael Preissner, and Paul Winter)
It went on to say essentially, "if you do keep them in your employment, they are available to ThedaCare, or you don't hire them".
They sort of had to issue it in the first place because Thedacare made a claim that grave harm could happen to the community. It turns out it was bullshit, but they had to hear them out to decide. (Note that I'm being charitable, not defending the principle of the thing.)