A group of faculty and staff met last Saturday afternoon to discuss these questions. The individuals represented a reasonable cross-section of academic staff and faculty (in length of service) and most of the employee organizations such as PROFS, UFAS and academic staff governance groups. The meeting was organized by Wisconsin University Union (WUU) for the purpose of assessing interest in a campus-wide organization and figuring out what that organization would do.

There was a unanimous opinion that an employee organization is needed. Many of the discussion participants were members/leaders of the staff and faculty governance organizations and spoke to the limitations of those organizations. Academic staff discussed the inability of the Academic Staff Assembly to address most of the major issues facing the staff e.g. layoffs, promotions, pay inequities. And noted the low level of participation and interaction with those they purport to represent. Faculty noted that the Senate failed to take a strong position on the Public Authority proposal until it was effectively dead. Given the structural ties between the Faculty Senate and PROFS, that organization is often hamstrung from positions that most members of PROFS endorse.

Both governing institutions and their related lobbying arms, PROFS and ASPRO, have low revenue. ASPRO also has a very low percentage of the academic staff as members which limits their capacity.  Also, neither organization has played a role in representing individual employees in job-related disputes and as a result has little experience with some of the major issues facing employees.

If there was agreement on the need for such an organization, there was less agreement on what it would do. The discussion focused on two elements, internal objectives (employee-based, campus policy development) and external directed objectives (legislative, public information).

The main points raised in the discussion of campus objectives were:

• Participating in/ monitoring the development of a new personnel system. Most people don’t know UW employees lost civil service protections in the new budget or what it might mean. A new personnel system is being created over the next year and we should be engaged in that process.
• Whistleblower protections. This was a statutory protection that was lost with the civil service law.
• Advocating for institutional integrity. This includes being “budget watchdog.” We’re watching the action so you don’t have to.
• Protecting rights of individual employees. The grievance committee process is weak and at best deeply flawed. Most people don’t know what to do. Effective employee representation can serve an important function.
• Improve rights of academic staff in regard to layoffs, transfers, etc.
• Advise employees. Many employees don’t know where to go for reliable information on important personnel decisions such as retirement. Having a practical and immediate function builds membership support too.

Some of the external roles and objectives were:

• Positive public information on UW. Our problems in compensation go beyond the immediate budget shortfall. Popular opinion of UW-Madison is low.
• Support the lobbying effort. Given the number of affected employees, the lobbying effort is low and can benefit from additional support.
• Working with other UW campuses. We are not alone in this mess and need to work with other faculty and staff on other campuses. It appears that the current inter-campus faculty committee has been disbanded by the UWS.

Obviously, more ideas were brought up. But the discussion turned to how do we do this? It was suggested that we do a survey of staff and faculty to directly determine their interests and priorities. It was agreed that we could do that in the next few weeks. Following the completion of the survey we will meet again, hopefully bring more people into the discussion and continue the process. If you would like to participate or be kept in the loop let me know at dmahrens@gmail.com.

DMA

Save the date!

Saturday, Sept 24 — 10 AM- 3 PM

Building an Effective Organization for Faculty and Staff

If you read Sifting and Winnowing then you recognize that the events of last semester underscore the need for a viable organization of University staff and faculty. The Wisconsin University Union (WUU) invites you to a planning discussion about what that might look like. We’d like to hear from campus employees what they’d like that organization to focus on and do.

What issues should this organization prioritize?

• Improve compensation?
• Protect academic freedoms?
• Secure employee protections on layoffs, promotion, etc?
• Re-gain right to collectively bargain?
• Retain rights of self-governing institutions?
• Other?

What function/activity should this organization prioritize?

• Provide accurate and timely information on issues affecting employees?
• Advocate for individual employees in workplace disputes?
• Conduit information to decision-makers at state and campus level?
• Develop political capacity to advocate for campus interests such as lobbying or organizing a PAC?
• Work with similar grassroots groups on other UW campuses?
• Other?

We intend this to be a wide-open/no-preconceptions meeting — a frank (and fun) discussion of what’s really needed and how best to organize getting it. Please join other individual and organizational activists to discuss and plan an effective organization designed to meet our real challenges.

• On-campus location
• Ample food and drink available throughout!
• (More precise agenda to follow shortly)
• RSVP: dmahrens@wisc.edu / 334-1156

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:

1. What does this mean for my healthcare coverage?
2. 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?
3. 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.)?
4. 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?
5. 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

In that vein, we’d like to look back and regard the events of last semester as an aberration and not indicative of the life we live now or how we will live in the future. We’d rather not consider all of the facts and face the new reality: that we no longer know what life will be like in the future other than that it will probably be worse in some distinct but as of yet, unknown, ways. But “the facts get in the way” of our attempts to ignore our new and discomforting reality.

The fact is that as of August when the new health and WRS deductions go into effect, we will have a cumulative 20% loss in real income over the last 10 years (21% increase in cost-of-living and a 1% increase in compensation). And except for a small fraction of the faculty that might receive a retention award, no increase is in sight for the next two years regardless of inflation.

Or that Walker’s attempted putsch to control UW-Madison will not deter him from his goal of controlling the University. If the Democrats do not win control in the Senate as a result of the recalls, it is likely that Walker will attempt to change (through statute) the terms of the Regents to give him immediate control of a majority of the Board. A deeply conservative ideological Board will then appoint the new Chancellor for our campus.

Whether a “public authority” was or was not created may make little difference in the balance of power between the State and University. (As UW Regent Walsh mused, “What’s a public authority? It’s anything you want it to be.”) The UW Hospital is a “public authority” but unlike the University, it receives no funding from the state. Nonetheless, new law inserted into the budget prohibits Gyn-Ob residents from performing abortions despite the fact that the training is conducted off-premises of the Hospital with no public funds. (See Wisconsin State Journal: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_803d71f6-9c51-11e0-b739-001cc4c002e0.html) The Governor declined to veto this budget item explaining disingenuously that he believed the state should “not fund abortions.”

Abortion politics aside, the political power at the other end of State St. feels empowered to decide what is taught and probably not far off, the content of our research. Clearly, that’s the motive behind their attacks against the Havens Center, the Extension’s School for Workers and most recently, the Center on Wisconsin Strategy.

The political leadership has sought to implement policies to control the university with as little opposition as possible. The administration’s move to defund (and in the process “de-fang”) all of the campus employee organizations by terminating automatic dues deduction is an unabashed tactic to quash organized opposition. While the administration previously argued that it would not deduct dues for organizations that engage in collective bargaining, it has now extended the same prohibition against any employee association or advocacy.

Yet despite these concerted attacks, tumultuous protests and likely challenges in the future, the vast majority of faculty and staff remain unorganized and thus, relatively incapable of responding to on-going challenges. With the exception of the TAA, no organization was capable of mounting a response to the loss of state funding or collective bargaining rights. Though a petition was circulated among faculty in support of collective bargaining, a concerted campaign in conjunction with other campuses could not be conducted. (In fact, the major organization for academic staff, ASPRO, remained opposed to collective bargaining.)

I raise these issues as means of setting the discussion of some fundamental questions:

• How can we respond to these formidable current and future challenges?
• Is the current mix of organizations appropriate to the tasks ahead?
• Should the traditional divide of faculty/academic staff/ classified staff continue or does the new reality (classified staff will be unrepresented) require new forms of organization?
• What would an organization(s) do that is different from what is happening now?
• What should be the relationship of these organizations with the existing shared governance institutions? Should they be part of, aligned with or separate from them?
• What should our relationship be with organizations of faculty/staff on other UW campuses? Should these relationships be a primary goal of a “Madison” organization?

While it had been anticipated that the state would end the deduction for the unions, the end of the deduction for organizations that do not engage in collective bargaining comes as a surprise. In Walker’s initial budget, the prohibiting language was limited to “labor organizations” which are defined as “an organization that engages in collective bargaining.”  However, when the bill was amended in Joint Finance a more expansive amendment was added that prohibited dues deduction for any employee organization other than those representing public safety employees.

The unions have been preparing for the end of their dues deduction for some time. Their response has been to ask their members for monthly bank or credit card deductions. (Bank deductions are preferable because of fewer problems of changes in credit card numbers.) It is too early to tell their level of success but predictably, many members are not enthusiastic about signing an authorization for a 1% reduction in pay at the same time they are suffering a 10% reduction in pay.

In contrast, the voluntary organizations such as PROFS, WUU , ASPRO charge only nominal fees of one-tenth of 1% or in some cases only $5. Additionally, their memberships, as a whole, have significantly higher incomes.

The real issue here, however, is organization. We need it, and our employer, the State of Wisconsin, is doing everything possible to prevent organization or even effective participation of an opponent. Whether it requires photo ID of voters, defunding potentially oppositional non-profits or stripping the rights of employee organizations- the tactics change but the strategy is consistent.

If it hasn’t been clear yet to faculty and academic staff that we are in the same boat as our campus colleagues with blue and pink collars, this should be the final piece of evidence. The end of the dues deduction for non-bargaining employee organization is another message that from the perspective of the new rulers at the other end of State St. we are a single indistinguishable mass. We are the enemy that must be disenfranchised by whatever means are at hand.

Is it obvious that our response to this attack must be to join every available organization and pay the dues? What are less clear are the strategies of campus organizations. How shall we organize? What shall we do?

At a meeting Sunday, March 20, 2011, the general membership of the Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA) approved a motion to oppose the New Badger Partnership. The TAA opposes the separation of UW-Madison from the UW System and the formation of the public authority model.

The motion reads:

The TAA opposes the New Badger Partnership, especially the separation of UW-Madison from the UW System, the formation of the public authority model, and the threat to affordability and accessibility it poses to public education and the lack of protection for labor unions on campus. The TAA also objects to the non-transparent and undemocratic process by which the New Badger Partnership was designed.

“Our members have serious reservations about the sweeping changes being proposed to UW-Madison and UW System and the process through which these proposals have been pushed through without the full engagement of the UW community,” said Kevin Gibbons, TAA Co-President. “We see these provisions in the Budget Bill as a blatant attempt to privatize public education in Wisconsin. The budget bill divides the campuses of the UW System and makes sweeping cuts to our institutions and thus higher education in the state.”

As proposed a 21 member Board of Trustees would oversee the University. According to the budget bill, UW-Madison faculty, staff and students would have just four seats on the Board. “Given this governor’s antagonism toward our university system and the lack of adequate representation of the UW community on the proposed Board of Trustees, TAA members have said that they cannot accept these provisions. The TAA calls on the University to maintain its commitment to the principles of shared governance and the Wisconsin Idea,” said Gibbons.

The TAA advocates for a transparent, deliberative and democratic process that engages the university community should significant changes be made to UW-Madison and UW System. TAA members have continually expressed concern over the lack of transparency that they have witnessed over the formation, planning and legislative advocacy surrounding the New Badger Partnership.

“We are calling on the University to begin a long overdue conversation and evaluation,” said Adrienne Pagac, member of the TAA Stewards’ Council and a graduate student in Sociology. “Members of the UW community should have been consulted about the details of the plan prior to their inclusion in the Governor’s budget proposal. We should have been presented with a variety of solutions to our ‘problem’ of sustained competitiveness, but we were provided with just one, the New Badger Partnership, as the savior of UW-Madison’s reputation and mission. We should solicit alternative possibilities to address issues of competitiveness, funding sources, etc. before we move forward on a plan for which we have very few concrete details at this time.”

The Teaching Assistants’ Association represents nearly 3,000 graduate employees at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and is the oldest graduate employee union in the world.

In addition to that egregious example, here are two more that show how destructive and miserably crafted this bill is:

• At the Law School’s forum last night on the budget, one specialist talked about the fiscal consequences of the provision that requires employee unions to be recertified every year. The state agency that runs such elections has about 20 people now.  According to somebody who was there, the expert “did some projecting and concluded that the agency would have to have 100 or even 200 new employees. And this was only one cost of such provisions.”
• An accounting professor from a UW campus (not Madison) has identified a provision that apparently would cost the average employee around $1,500 per year in federal taxes, AND cost the state money. (From what I’ve heard, the actual budget bill is likely to fry our retirement system completely, but that’s the next plague we’ll suffer.)

One is that all limited term employees (LTEs) will be PROHIBITED from being eligible for health insurance or participation in the Wisconsin Retirement System. That’s right: they are not simply being asked to contribute to their benefit plans; they will not be allowed to have any state benefit plan at all!

According to this article in the Capital Times, this affects about 1,500 folks.

It should also be pointed out that many of these LTE positions are actually funded by private and other non-state sources, NOT by the Wisconsin taxpayer.  This is true for many other state employee positions as well, especially in the University and Hospital system.

In short, life-changing reductions in benefits would be imposed on workers whose pay and benefits have nothing to with the state budget.

-AC

Thanks so much for all of your support! Help is still needed!

There are letters of support here. It is very important that everyone encourage their departments and professional associations to write letters of support.

We need to keep up the marshaling effort overnight as well. The AFSCME organized marshals are only working during the day, however, we (the TAA) are here all night. The only way we can stay in the building is to keep everything peaceful/in line. All has gone well so far, but let’s help keep it that way! If you are looking for a way to contribute outside of regularly working hours, please come to 300 NE and say that you want to help out!

Reading list:
The Assault on Unions in Wisconsin
February 18, 2011, 3:29 pm
By Richard Kahlenberg
http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/the-assault-on-unions-in-wisconsin/28647

February 17, 2011
Fight Over Faculty Collective Bargaining Gathers Steam in Wisconsin
By Jack Stripling
Madison, Wis.
http://chronicle.com/article/Fight-Over-Union-Rights-in/126435/

February 15, 2011
With Unions Under Threat, Academics Join Huge Rally in Wisconsin
By Jack Stripling
Madison, Wis.
http://chronicle.com/article/With-Unions-Under-Threat/126379/

February 13, 2011
U. of Wisconsin Faculty Would Lose Collective-Bargaining Rights Under Governor’s Proposal
By Jeffrey J. Selingo
http://chronicle.com/article/U-of-Wisconsin-Faculty-Would/126354/

There is always the need for phone banking. Please contact Ben Young. There will be phone-banking today (February 20th) until 9pm at the TAA office. Please show up, and bring a cell phone! Food is being provided.

Please vote in online polls related to the budget bills.

We could use a toner cartridge for a Samsung ML-2851SD printer.

Yes, let’s all stipulate that the governor has to balance the budget.   What options does he have to do that?  He can (a) cut spending and/or (b) increase revenues.

Both of these options have downsides, both political and economic; otherwise we wouldn’t keep kicking the can down the road as long as we have.  Nevertheless, in a rational world, and pushed to the wall, we would weigh the pros and cons of both targeted spending cuts and targeted revenue increases and find the balance that is best for the long-term health of the economy and quality of life of Wisconsin.

Governor Scott Walker (and the vast majority of those who elected him to office) will not allow (b) to even be entertained, let alone discussed in a rational, sober, and reflective fashion.   In their worldview, imposing an effective 8% pay cut on state workers, many of whom are already earning only peanuts relative to  Walker’s most powerful supporters, is fundamentally and immutably preferable to raising taxes on those who, even in these tough economic times, are doing just fine.

Among those supporters, it is an article of faith that raising taxes in any form, including on even just the wealthy,  depresses the economy enough to more than offset the  benefits of collecting more revenue, balancing the budget, and sustaining a healthy state infrastructure.

But as Mark Twain pointed out, faith is believing that which you know in your heart not to be true.  That the beloved Laffer curve argument and “trickle down economics” have long been discredited by most serious economists (as well as by the historical record of Reagan/Bush economic policies) carries zero weight with those who choose to believe in these myths, just as the findings of biologists mean nothing to creationists and the concerns of climate scientists about carbon emissions mean nothing to those who prefer to blame sunspots.

Okay, so raising revenues has been dismissed out of hand.  And yes, that does leave only spending cuts.  Can we at least have a rational discussion about what kind of cuts will be least harmful to Wisconsin’s future?  And can the evidence at least be presented, and publicly debated, that the draconian bill currently on the table is not only ineffective at achieving its purported aim but also incredibly destructive, not only for the individual families most immediately affected but also for the qualities that make Wisconsin a desirable place to live and work?

As shown by the haste with which this bill is being rammed through, the clear answer to both questions, coming from the governor’s office and from Republican legislators, is a resounding no!

There is ample evidence, for those willing to see it, that the purported goal of balancing the budget is merely a fig leaf for the bill’s true intent, which is to reverse the fifty years of “liberal” social progress that used to distinguish Wisconsin from its peers and to smash the institutions that have traditionally served as the most effective counter to the political, social, and economic ambitions of Walker’s deep-pocketed supporters.

There is one exceedingly small consolation for those of us appalled by the vindictive “scorched earth” policies of our brand new state government.   When all is said and done, voters – at least a bare majority of them – do get the government they so richly deserve.  After all,  no one who was actually paying attention before the election has cause for surprise.