OPINION & EDITORIAL
Editorial Board errs on TAA contract
Looking for a print version?
Simply choose ‘Print’ on your computer and a printer-friendly document will be generated.
Also by Letters to the Editor:
- SSFC stipend appropriate (December 11, 2007)
- Poor plowing cuts off handicapped access (December 10, 2007)
- Cars that actually help the environment (December 10, 2007)
- Organic food: Deliciously safe (December 10, 2007)
- Diversity deserves attention at UW (December 7, 2007)
Related Stories:
- Herald coverage of TAA well focused (December 1, 2005)
- Setting the record straight (March 7, 2005)
- Editorial board wrong on teaching assistants (March 8, 2005)
- Board misses point (December 1, 2006)
- Herald unleashed childish attack on Kumar (December 8, 2005)
by Letters to the Editor
Monday, November 28, 2005
Many thanks for your editorial commending the tentative agreement reached between the TAA and the state of Wisconsin. The editorial struck a welcome tone of moderation in discussing grad employees' two-year-plus struggle to get a contract.
However, we do want to take exception to the editorial board's belief that "the $163 one-time bonus is suspiciously just $1 more than health care for the entirety of 2006." I gather that these figures were based on the assumption that TA/PAs would be paying $13.50 per month for 12 months in 2006, for an annual total of $162. First, a clarification: single insured TA/PAs will pay $11 per month in 2006, the year that the one-time bonus is paid out. At that rate, the annual cost of premiums is $132 dollars per person. In January 2007, the higher single insured rate of $13.50 kicks in and remains in effect until the 2005-07 contract expires at the end of June 2007 — a total of six months.
More fundamentally, if you're one of the approximately 525 members who carry a family insurance plan, the monthly rates are higher and the one-time $163 payment is not at all "suspicious" — it's not anywhere near the $408 per year they would pay. Fortunately, members with families would not suffer a pay cut as a result of higher monthly premiums under the terms of the 2003-2007 tentative agreement. This was one of the central issues in the last two and a half years of negotiations, and the agreement is a great success in this regard.
In reality, the great majority of the money the editorial board found "suspicious" is simply another form of back pay for the years 2003-2005. The reason no individual member pays retroactive premiums for the past two years is that the agreement effectively exchanges back pay for back premiums. However, after the retroactive premium bill is paid, there is still a surplus of approximately $143 per member. The TAA negotiated an additional $20 on top of that, for a grand total of $163 in a one-time "signing" bonus for all members in the first year of the contract.
In tough economic times, labor unions have to fight hard just to hold the line. The 2003-2007 tentative agreement is not the best deal imaginable, but in the end it achieves exactly the kinds of things that unions should be fighting for in hard times: protecting members' wages and controlling insurance costs, making modest gains where possible, and building an organization that will be able to continue the fight. That is what the TAA, as a body of concerned and active members, has done for the past several years and will continue to do in future campaigns.
We look forward to many more informative articles and editorials on the subject of collective bargaining and the state of funding for the UW.
Sincerely,
Samaa Abdurraqib
TAA Co-President
Anonymous (November 28, 2005 @ 9:37am):
wow $20 signing bonus - I need a union to get a deal that good!
Actually, your union got owned by the state. So much for your no premium BS.
Anonymous (November 28, 2005 @ 5:51pm):
"Actually, your union got owned by the state. So much for your no premium BS."
I fail to see how a raise that puts us much closer to market value salaries constitutes "getting owned" by the state. And though it didn't get much press, the issue for most TAA members wasn't the state's insistence that we pay premiums. The issue was that the state's offer constituted a decrease in salary when the premiums were included, without even accounting for inflation.
