DISCLAIMER:  The letter from L&S (and therefore this post) is intended strictly as a convenient guide to the contract changes and presumably has no binding authority.  Please refer to the actual collective bargaining agreement for authoritative information. Sifting and Winnowing is not responsible for any inaccuracies or omissions either in the original letter from L&S or in our reproduction of that letter.

Summary of Changes in the 2007-09 to TA Contract

Wages, Benefits and other Cost Items

Article X, Section 1:    Wage Adjustments

• General Wage Adjustments:
  • Year 1:      2%
  • Year 2:     1% effective Semester I; 2% effective nearest pay period to 6/7/09

Paid as lump sum (minus the amount of increased health insurance premiums owed by employees) to all bargaining unit members (except hourly PAs and Reader/Graders) in pay status on April, 2009 payroll. The amount is $623.62 Note: the amount will be reduced by the amount of

• $95 lump sum to all TAs and PAs (including hourly PAs, excluding Readers/Graders) in pay status on the April 2009 payroll. This represents the 08-09 cost to the university if we had eliminated the lowest TA level beginning Semester I of 08-09.

• This is not in the Wage Adjustments document, but has been agreed to by OSER, UW and the TAA.

• • TAs and PAs on the October, 2009 payroll will receive retroactive pay as if the new rates were in effect on July 1, 2009 for PAs (all of whom are A-basis) and on August 24, 2009 for TAs (all of whom are C-basis).  This pay is though the October payroll month. The difference in the monthly employee health insurance premiums will be deducted from the pay for that period.

• • TAs and PAs will be paid the new rates on the regular payroll cycles beginning with the November payroll month.

This table shows the anticipated pay dates for all of the wage adjustments.

Article X, Section 2:  Experience/Training Levels

• Allows K-8 teaching experience to count as experience.

• Eliminates language requiring diversity issues training to qualify for the experienced rate.  Instead requires completion of the diversity issues training in order to be reappointed for more than one semester.

• Eliminates the “Regular TA” level beginning 09-10; changes the name of the “Experienced TA” to “Standard TA.”  There are now only two levels of TA.

2008-09 Titles and Rates – to be used until the 2009-10 contract is negotiated

Article XI, Section 1:            Health Insurance

• Increases TA/PA health insurance monthly premiums for Tier 1 plans by $2 for Single and $5 for family coverage beginning January, 2009

Negotiating Note #3:            Child Care

• Increases the Employer’s 2007-09 set aside for TA/PA child care expense assistance from $150,000 to $157,500.

LANGUAGE

Article II, Section 11:            Union Orientation

• We agreed on include TAA membership card with “Membership information” already provided to new TAs and PAs.
• We added language stating that departments may agree to allow the TAA at least 15 minutes to make a presentation at orientation sessions.

Article V, Section 6:            Appointments

• We agreed on requiring open PA appointments to be posted on the web (Student Job Center) unless the position is reserved for guarantees of support or recruiting offers, reappointments or those that have to be filled within 7 days for emergency purposes.

Article V, Section 9:            Work Surroundings

• We agreed on providing an internet accessible computer with printing capability when it is determined by the employer to be necessary for performing assigned duties.

Article VI, Section 1:            Orientation and Training

• We changed EDRC to OED
• We agreed to add language that allows OED to approve alternative diversity workshops to the standards workshops.

Article VII, Section 1:                        Discrimination

• We agreed on adding language to cover gender identification and expression as a protected status.
• We agreed on adding language stating that employees should not be subjected to “discriminatory behavior that precludes, distracts or otherwise encumbers the employee from performing the duties of his or her job.”

Article VIII, Section 13:            Lactation Rooms

• We agreed on language requiring the employer to have at least three lactation rooms on campus; the employer needs to consult with the Campus Childcare Committee on the location of and specifications for such rooms.

NOTE: UW-Madison currently has 7 lactation rooms on campus.

• We agreed on minimum standards for at least three of the lactation rooms:
  • is at least 70 sq ft
  • cannot be a bathroom
  • has a curtain or door for privacy
  • has accessible electrical outlets
  • has a couch or chair
  • has a trash can
  • has a table or counter space
  • is on the same floor as a bathroom
  • has two pro-lactation posters, and
  • has a means of indicating that the room is occupied or vacant.

NOTE: UW-Madison currently has three rooms that need only the posters to meet these standards.

Article XI, Section 5:            Sick Leave Credit Bank

• Allows sick leave to be used in increments of ½ days instead of the previous one full day.  This will increase the effective amount of sick leave available.

Memo from UW to TAA re:             Catastrophic Leave

• We agreed on this memo to document options available to a TA or PA with a catastrophic illness during the semester.  It does not create any new benefits or practices.  It covers three areas of concern.

• • Impact on employee’s stipend
  • Impact on tuition remission
  • Impact on health insurance coverage

Negotiating Note #9:            PA Academic Basis Appointments

• Creates a C-basis PA appointment in addition to A-basis appointments; requested by UW.

Note:  Current PAs should not be converted to C basis until July 1, 2010 or later.  New PA appointments may be made on a C-basis immediately.

OHR         11/4/09

Professors of the World, Unite?

We are posting the link here not because the editors of this forum take sides (yet) on whether faculty should unionize but rather to promote awareness of the issue and to invite comment, both pro and con, from readers.  In particular, comment is invited on (a) whether the op-ed piece is factually accurate, and (b) whether unionization is desirable for UW-Madison faculty.

- the Editors

There are stories within stories here, and most readers are blissfully unaware of how a very few individuals on both sides of the issue played a disproportionate role in shaping the outcome, especially for UW RAs, who came within a hair’s breadth of being absorbed into an existing union without their knowledge or consent.  These are stories for another time.

The important point is that every affected group now has the choice (a) whether to unionize and (b) if so, who should represent them. The decision to unionize is not unlike the decision to get a tattoo — once it has been made, it is very difficult to revoke. I urge readers to pay extremely close attention to this issue and to look out not only for their own best interests but also the interests of future faculty, staff, and students (all students, not just RAs) at UW.

That said, it is probably fair to say that academics tend to be suspicious of the push to unionize. I believe there are three major reasons for this:

• It is not at all obvious that the 19th-century model of labor-management relations that apparently still serves as the raison d’etre for most traditional unions is even applicable to academia.
• The tactics of many prominent unions have sometimes, even recently, come across as decidedly undemocratic, depending on backroom deals and shrewd legal maneuvering for success rather than on the informed participation of those they purport to represent.
• Rightly or wrongly, the leadership of at least some unions is perceived as driven more by ideology and/or self-aggrandizement than by the true interests of the rank-and-file workers.

For most academics, I daresay, the principle of enlightened self-determination trumps any purported benefits of unionization.  Therefore, if unions are to have any hope of gaining traction at UW in the months or years to come, they will have to persuade their audience that

1. what they offer has provable benefits not only to individual faculty and staff but to the whole enterprise of scholarship and education at UW, and
2. they are prepared to let the outcome be determined by the evidence and an informed debate and not by pressure tactics, sloganeering, subterfuge, or backroom maneuvering.

As we move into the next chapter of the collective bargaining story, I hope that this forum will be able to play host to informed opinions on all sides of the issue.

- GWP