OPINION & EDITORIAL
Legislators leave UW lacking, lowly
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by Ryan Greenfield
Monday, March 10, 2008
Almost all public- and private-sector employees in the state of Wisconsin have the right to organize a union in their workplace if they win the support of a majority of their co-workers. But according to state law, 17,000 University of Wisconsin faculty and academic staff belong to a subclass of workers unworthy of the right to bargain collectively. Yet we still wonder why so many great professors leave UW for other schools every year.
This is the unfortunate reality that Sen. Dave Hansen, D-Green Bay, and Rep. Jon Richards, D-Milwaukee, are trying to change. Their bill to permit faculty to unionize passed overwhelmingly in the state Senate but is being held up in the state Assembly by Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater.
Mr. Nass chairs the Colleges and Universities Committee, even though he has ironically demonstrated his hatred for state support of higher education by attempting to cut $120 million from the UW System in the most recent state budget.
While opposing unionization in all sectors of the economy is consistent with right-wing ideology, it is inconsistent with quality public education. If UW faculty members are not able to negotiate competitive salaries and benefits with the administration, they will — and do — find a school that gives them a better deal.
Other universities are aware of this and are increasingly trying to lure UW faculty away. Twice as many UW professors received outside offers in the 2005-06 school year as compared to the 2001-02 school year. Professors who receive an outside offer are usually proposed a salary on average 30 percent larger than their current salary at UW.
UW does not even grant benefits to domestic partners of faculty and staff. So it shouldn’t be a mystery why the current six-year faculty retention rate for the UW System has declined to 57 percent compared to 75 percent in the six years prior.
I’ve personally had multiple political science professors tell my class at the end of the year about how they’d fallen in love with UW and the city of Madison and were completely torn up about the decision to accept an outside offer. But at the end of the day, the offer was always too much money to turn down, so they left.
It is unacceptable in a state that prides itself on quality public education to be losing so many great professors. We will never be able to compete with the benefits offered by well-endowed private institutions. But when faculty members are leaving in droves to schools like Ohio State and Michigan State, we know we have a problem.
It is apparent that the very concept of a “public university” is losing its meaning. Ostensibly, UW is a state school, but its share of allocated finances from the Legislature has declined from 34 percent to 24 percent in the last 10 years. The share of the UW budget financed by tuition and fees has risen to 55 percent of the total. UW is relying increasingly on private sources of funding like research grants, dorm fees and alumni donations.
Thus, the effort to skimp on salaries and benefits by not offering faculty members the right to unionize are only symptoms of a larger problem: a lack of state commitment to public higher education. Wisconsin has tried piecemeal solutions to this problem, like creating multimillion dollar “retention funds” to sweeten benefit packages for faculty. But the lack of bargaining power is a fundamental problem for faculty that will continue to hold down salaries until they are given the ability to unionize.
Beyond the economic arguments, the right to form a union is also a universal human and civil right. Article 23 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.” What is it about UW faculty members that makes them somehow less deserving of this right?
Mr. Nass needs to understand that the money he can cut from faculty paychecks by denying their right to unionize is less important than the incalculable loss in educational quality when a great professor leaves our university. Until the state reaffirms its commitment to higher education in spite of the dire budget situation, we can only expect further disheartening declines in the quality and reputation of Wisconsin’s most powerful economic engine.
Ryan Greenfield (rgreenfield@badgerherald.com) is a junior majoring in political science and economics.
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 6:56am):
In my department, we've had faculty leave for $500,000 per year offers. No public university can match that.
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 12:22pm):
nass hates our freedoms
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 12:29pm):
The Student Union should strike for lower home-work and higher grades!
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 3:20pm):
Nass hates education because facts have a notoriously liberal bias. Obviously, his continued employment depends on keeping people ignorant.
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 3:35pm):
"Student Union?" Are you high?
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 8:22pm):
Rather than attack Nass, UW needs a new
chancellor who will clean up the disaster
left behind by John Wiley. Wiley's
bumbling has really hurt our reputatation
badly.
Anonymous (March 12, 2008 @ 10:19pm):
Right. Wiley really blew it. New and
improved leadership is needed here to turn
things around.
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