At long last, a deal has been struck.

Last Wednesday, the Teaching Assistants Association and the Office of State Employee Relations tentatively agreed on contracts for the 2003-05 and 2005-07 biennia. The contracts, which must still be ratified by the TAA membership, approved by the state Legislature and signed by the governor, represent the latest chapter in the soap opera that began almost as soon as the last contract was signed.

We hope this is the final chapter.

The teaching assistants in Madison have worked without a contract for far too long. Members and non-members alike have been hurt by the stubborn and often childish actions of both TAA and OSER negotiators. This board is happy and relieved the two groups have finally come together and found an equitable agreement.

While the TAA is being unusually tight-lipped about the deal, it is clear from its ballot summary, obtained by The Badger Herald, that both sides have made healthy concessions. The TAA has agreed to the highly contentious addition of health-care premiums, but it seems that a number of offsets cover that cost — the $163 one-time bonus is suspiciously just $1 more than health care for the entirety of 2006.

In addition, the TAA gave up on substantial increases for the 2003-05 agreement in favor of health-pay increases on the 2005-07 contract. The average pay increase during the new contract is 8.24 percent, including a whopping 11.13 percent for new TAs and 16.61 percent for graders.

In addition to the pay raises, the contracts have clear non-economic benefits for all TAs, including prohibiting hiring graduate students as hourly employees when their duties clearly fall within a TA or PA context, changes to the grievance system and adding a "Me Too" clause that would link the TAA's general wage adjustment to other state employee unions.

With such clear benefits for teaching assistants, we strongly encourage the TAA membership to ratify and the Legislature to quickly approve the contracts. The sooner University of Wisconsin TAs are covered under the new contracts, the better for all parties involved.

We are happy the TAA has finally agreed with OSER on a contract. After the ups and downs of the past two years, including a disastrous strike and walking away from multiple deals, it is nice to see the TAA has managed to pull a rabbit out of its hat and hand its membership an excellent contract.

Now we just need to get that signature.