Nass draws ire for stalling bill

by Julia Bair

Monday, March 10, 2008 00:51

One lawmaker’s refusal to move forward a bill that would provide University of Wisconsin faculty with collective bargaining rights drew complaints from a group representing educators statewide late last week.

The bill passed the Senate three weeks ago, but Assembly leaders have yet to allow debate on it, drawing criticism from Wisconsin’s American Federation of Teachers group.

Rep. Stephen Nass, R-Whitewater, who chairs the Committee on Colleges and Universities, has repeatedly refused to hold a hearing on the bill in its current form.

The bill would provide all faculty and staff in the UW System with the right to collectively bargain over wages, hours and conditions of employment.

“I feel the right to form a union is a fundamental human right and furthermore a fundamental civil right,” the bill’s author, Sen. Dave Hansen, D-Green Bay, said when it passed the Senate.

However, the bill would prohibit strikes and exclude the issues of tenure, the mission and goals of the Board of Regents and academic freedom from the negotiation process.

According to Nass spokesperson Mike Mikalsen, tenure and academic freedom are a big part of the collective bargaining process and should not be excluded from the bill.

“The bottom line is Nass has told various groups how the bill would have to be structured for him to support it,” Mikalsen said. “The other side has opposed amendment. There has to be some flexibility, and at this point they don’t have it.”

Mikalsen added the bill is unbalanced and takes power away from taxpayers and students. According to Mikalsen, collective bargaining would unquestionably lead to higher salaries, and there has to be security for students. Nass has proposed a tuition cap to provide this security.

Bryan Kennedy, president of the American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin, said the failure of the collective bargaining rights bill would reflect the issues of fairness across party lines.

“We have the support we need in the Assembly for this bill to pass, and it’s a disgrace that the Assembly leadership refuses to let those voices be heard,” Kennedy said in a statement. “It’s a slap in the face to the democratic process.”

Under the current State Employment Labor Relations Act, Wisconsin faculty at technical colleges can form unions, but university faculty cannot. According to Hansen, Wisconsin is one of only four states with this legislation.

The bill passed in the Senate with a vote of 21-10. But last Thursday when Rep. Jon Richards, D-Milwaukee, moved to debate the bill on the Republican-controlled Assembly floor, the vote was defeated along party lines.

According to Mikalsen, Nass doesn’t believe faculty and staff need better wages because UW already has great retirement and health care benefits.

“In terms of just salaries, you do see higher wages at peer institutions,” Mikalsen said. “But UW faculty currently has the second best public pension system in the country.”

Mikalsen added many faculty would rather have good benefits and lower salaries in a trade-off between the two.

 

— Beth Mueller contributed to this report.