Archive for the ‘State worker benefits’ Category
Thursday, January 5th, 2012
In a little discussed or noted provision in the current state budget, the Governor ordered a study of the WRS pension system. Specifically, the study is to report on the potential for conversion of the current WRS into a defined contribution plan and to end the current defined benefit plan.
In brief, a defined contribution (DC) plan is one in which the benefit is directly determined by the amount of principle and interest contributed by the annuitant. 401-K’s are the most common forms of DC plan instruments. They are typically managed by private investment firms. (more…)
Posted in State worker benefits, State-University Relations | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011
This figure (click to enlarge) represents the real and nominal changes in the salary of a UW System employee. This does not include total compensation such as health insurance, costs of leave benefits, etc.
However, it does include reductions in salary due to higher co-pays for insurance and WRS. It also includes the reductions of salary due to furlough and the addition of 3% when the furloughs ended. I do not project the loss of real income in 2012 due to inflation and no increase in salary.
Posted in Compensation, State worker benefits, The University Budget, The University System | No Comments »
Monday, October 3rd, 2011
Do UW employees need a representative organization in addition to the existing governance institutions? What would be the primary objectives of the organization? How would this organization evolve?
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. (more…)
Posted in Collective bargaining, Compensation, Shared governance, State worker benefits | 1 Comment »
Monday, July 18th, 2011
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. (more…)
Posted in Collective bargaining, College costs, Compensation, Graduate student affairs, State worker benefits, State-University Relations, The UW-Madison Campus | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, July 13th, 2011
It is easy — indeed, it is natural after a series of crises to mistake a momentary calm for a return to normalcy. We, of course, want the threats to subside and to return to the way things once were which, even if they weren’t quite perfect, were familiar.
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. (more…)
Posted in Collective bargaining, Compensation, State worker benefits, State-University Relations, The University Budget, The UW-Madison Campus | 6 Comments »
Friday, June 24th, 2011
On Thursday, UW System notified all UW employee organizations that it would stop collecting dues effective in August. This will affect PROFS, ASPRO, WUU, and the Council for Supervisory Non-Classified Staff as well as the unions (AFSCME, TAA, etc.). (Note: UW Madison administration was not notified of this action until after the fact.)
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. (more…)
Posted in Collective bargaining, Compensation, State worker benefits, State-University Relations, The University System | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
This letter from 12 “back-benchers” in the Assembly GOP caucus spells the end of the public authority proposal as we now know it. Many of these Reps represent marginal districts and their re-election makes the difference between a majority and minority. They also took the step of publicizing their request- which is unusual. The question remains: what, if anything, will be proposed in its place?
Posted in State worker benefits, The University Budget, The University System, The UW-Madison Campus | No Comments »
Saturday, March 5th, 2011
On February 11, Scott Walker unveiled his “budget repair bill”, which calls for the elimination of collective bargaining rights by unionized public employees and imposes immediate and drastic cuts in take-home pay for public workers by requiring new employee contributions to health and pension benefits. (more…)
Posted in Compensation, State worker benefits, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, March 1st, 2011
The following article by Kristen Emery was originally posted on her blog at kristensanfran.wordpress.com. As of this writing (early March 1), that website mysteriously comes up blank, so the following has been recovered from a Google cached copy. – Eds.
Yesterday was an incredible day for news, and my head is still spinning. And some of the news content has given me a theory, which might explain Governor Scott Walker‘s stubbornness about refusing to yield on the collective bargaining issue. It is only a theory now, but if I am right – then Walker may have stepped on the proverbial bee hive. The nuggets of information in the news content: (more…)
Posted in Compensation, State worker benefits, State-University Relations | 9 Comments »
