On June 15, 2011, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled to lift Judge Sumi’s injunction on the Budget Repair Bill giving the state the go-ahead to implement the bill as law. During the protests of February through May, people came together in attempt to stop the bill from becoming law – but now it is law and that’s that. In the media, I didn’t see any uproar, or questioning of this new law’s impact, or calls to know what’s in store for us in the future — I found just two (1, 2) recent articles which recounted the push-back and feelings of solidarity of the protests and emphasized the need to remember these feelings and our (i.e. public employees) connections to each other. Both articles, however, treated the fight for our collective bargaining rights as being over — we should look back on our solidarity and our fight and know that even though we “lost,” we tried our darnedest. But the assault isn’t over — it’s just beginning. Things are going to change and people’s lives are going to be affected – we just don’t know exactly how or when.
In the past week, I have attempted to make a list of the immediate and long-term implications of this new law for the employees of UW-Madison. We need to keep track of all the effects of this law so that we can literally show the members of the legislature who supported this bill exactly WHY we were screaming back in February “This bill does not repair the budget! And this bill does not help the people of Wisconsin!”
As a TA at UW-Madison, I am concerned about what this means for me when I return to work in August — I have no idea how this law will affect my life in the near or distant future. But I do know that my union no longer has the right to bargain with the State of Wisconsin about anything other than my salary (which by law can now only be raised to match the rate of inflation, meaning that although we haven’t been bargaining for a pay raise in years, now we legally can’t even ask for one). Other questions I have about the implications of this law for me as a UW employee include:
- What does this mean for my healthcare coverage?
- What does this mean for the grievance procedures, workload limits, sick leave, and emergency family leave policies that were granted to me in my contract? Do I even have a “contract” now?
- How can we as graduate student workers make our needs and desires known and recognized? And who should we be trying to make our needs and desires known to (i.e. the administration, politicians, lobbyists, etc.)?
- What does it mean now that the TAA can no longer charge non-members for the cost of representation (i.e. the TAA can no longer collect dues from non-members even though they will be representing them in salary negotiations) — this surely means that the TAA will struggle in raising funds, which makes me wonder how the staff and volunteers for the TAA will be able to work towards protecting things like my salary, healthcare, workload limits, etc. when there is no money – but who will they be “bargaining” with now that they won’t be “bargaining” with the state?
- What does this mean for my tuition waiver?
I am also concerned that people may not realize how MANY people working for the UW are affected by this law – in addition to graduate student workers, this law will affect the lives of classified staff, academic staff, non-reps, and the faculty.
Additionally, I am concerned that the effects will not all be felt at the same time (unlike in February, when we all felt attacked at the same time with the introduction of the bill). Many things will change as a result of Wisconsin Act 10, and these changes will not all happen at once, making it difficult to keep count of all the impacts of this new law, and difficult to support each other when we’re all being attacked from different sides at different times. Two already-observable implications of this law include the revoking of academic staff and faculty members’ right to unionize (which they just won) and the decision by UW system to prohibit all UW employee organizations (unionized or otherwise) from collecting dues as of August (as discussed in the S&W article). But it’s only July. Who knows what changes in working conditions will occur for UW employees between now and the start of fall semester.
Wisconsin has not lost, however. Wisconsin is still very much in this battle, and we need to do more than just look back to the protests of February and remember the feelings of solidarity — we need to vote, we need to stay united, we need to ask questions, and we need to keep turning to each other for support and help — Please share the ways in which this law impacts you, your friends and family, and please continue to speak out and up and QUESTION those who make decisions with inconceivable ramifications so that we can combat these attacks on our rights and livelihoods with empirical purpose and unrelenting solidarity.
- Alyson S.
Graduate student teaching assistant
Here’s the nitty-gritty:
1) Healthcare – for graduate assistants, single person coverage increases from $15.50/month to $42/month and family coverage increases from $39/month to $104/month. As an “unclassified” employee, your premium increase will appear on your September 1, 2011, pay-stub (should you have been employed in August) or, more likely, on your October 1, 2011, pay-stub.
2) The Administration stated in an email dated July 5, 2011, that “the university will continue to abide by the terms of their contract (except for the increased health insurance premiums and elimination of union dues) and will not make any changes without consultation and discussion.” Law or no law, the Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA) plans to continue to advocate and fight for graduate students on campus whether the Administration abides by contractual language or doesn’t.
3) Though it might sound cliche, it seems to me that getting involved in organizations that represent interests and concerns of undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, our long unsung and under-appreciated staff – any seem like a good way to go. And I would guess that those organizations have a variety of ways to get folks “plugged in” and plugged into activities that interest them.
The TAA, for example, is a member-run union and has been since its inception in 1969. Never has the saying “many hands make light work” been so true as now. Because of Act 10 (the Budget Repair Bill), we have all of campus to re-organize and that takes graduate students willing to talk to other grads about why having a union is important and to inform new graduate students about what foundation our union put down before their arrival (tuition remission, health care, grievance procedures!!!, etc.). Unless folks have been living under a rock (and believe me, it has been tempting), there are recalls afoot that need people to make a call or knock on a door and remind folks to vote tomorrow and in August. If electoral politics aren’t your thing, our union needs folks to keep an eye out for overwork, discrimination, harassment, and the like at the work-site (your classroom, your lab, your office) so that we can collectively address abuse that we **still** don’t need to take even though Act 10 exists.
4) Yes, Act 10 put an end to “fair share” dues collection – a practice that recognized that individuals who were not members of a union materially benefited from wins obtained by that union’s action and therefore should share in the cost of maintaining that advocate. It also ended the practice of “dues check-off” where the employer deducted employee dues from their paycheck and forwarded them to the union. That said, the TAA has already devised a new means of dues collection, utilized by many private-sector unions, to deduct dues directly from member bank accounts. Contact the TAA office to learn more about it.
To your question about “bargaining” and “bargaining with who” – that all depends on membership. On July 27, we will have a General Membership Meeting to decide whether we will recertify as the exclusive bargaining agent (as recognized by law) for graduate assistants on campus. If membership decided to recertify, then we will bargain with the State the same as before over the issue of “wages” and no more. If we, the membership, choose not to recertify, then we will not negotiate with the State for a wage increase (presuming they would give one to us anyway – HA!). But as the history of the TAA can attest, possessing the legal distinction of certified union has never stopped it from fighting for issues and concerns of graduate students and it would not do so now.
5) The TAA did win the “tuition waiver” for graduate student employees in lieu of a significant wage cut some years ago. Though it seems unlikely that the State would be willing to rescind that offer (what would that do for UW-Madison competitiveness?), it seems to me that the State administration is willing to do just about anything and we, as a collective body, need to be ready to respond to issues that affect our interests.
I don’t think that the fight is over. We have to counter the Governor’s bullshit narrative about financial crisis and “shared (!?!) responsibility”. We, UW-Madison, have to stand together with other union members, community advocacy groups, etc. if we are going to win. And, we have to ACT.
Teaching Assistants’ Association member
Teaching Assistants’ Association
It may be that you are not finding what you seek re the impact of the Budget Repair Bill because you really ought to look at the impact of the next bill, the 2011-2013 Biennial Budget Bill (to term it in a similar way for understanding).
A budget repair bill only applies to aka “repairs” or amends a current biennial budget. So Walker’s budget repair bill applied to the budget already ended as of June 30 — and his overreach, countered by success of the protests, the court delays, etc., meant that the provisions that you write about did not go into effect in April as he had hoped, for the rest of that budget behind us.
Instead, then, as I understand it from watching the process closely, the impacts upon collective bargaining rights and our paychecks — with higher costs for health insurance, pensions (not for TAs but for others), etc. — became law with the regular budget bill for the biennium that began on July 1. (Fiscal years always run from July 1 through June 30, unlike calendar years that begin in January, academic years that begin in August or September, etc.)
However, again owing to the delays and to the complexities of massive revisions of payroll programs (atop the new, UW System-wide payroll program that began this summer and still has a lot of problems to be worked out) to redo deductions caused the Dept of Administration to determine that the effective date of those changes could not begin with the new biennium on July 1. The latest that we have heard from Mike Huebsch, Walker’s DoA head, is that the changes in deductions, paychecks, etc., will begin for state workers as of August 25.
Of course, that means for those of us in academic employ that the changes in paychecks will be evident on October 1.
I hope that helps to understand the terminology of different budget bills — and, to your point, to be able to search for more information in media, on UW campus websites, etc., on the impact of the 2011-2013 biennial budget bill, its clauses and acts (as noted above) and more that, I fear, may include more hits to us all that may have gotten past us amid the chaos of the Walker attacks, the counterattacks, the court cases, etc.