Research assistants at the University of Wisconsin will be able to voice their opinions Thursday on tentative rules for unionization during a Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission hearing.
The meeting, which is open to the public, will allow research assistants across the UW System to make suggestions on how they want their unions to be formed or whether they want unions to be formed at all.
Recent state legislation allowed for the 2009-11 state budget to have room for research assistants to unionize for the first time and form a union if they choose through either a secret ballot or authorization cards, according to Associated Students of Madison Student Council Rep. Matt Tobelmann.
Even though the legislation has been passed, it is up to WERC and in part the public to decide the specific rules regarding RA unionization.
Traditionally, according to WERC spokesperson Peter Davis, unions have been formed by a secret ballot election, which would form a union with a vote of 50 percent plus one among research assistants.
An alternate way of forming a union, which will also be discussed at the meeting, is authorization cards, also known as card check.
To have a union approved by authorization cards, research assistants would sign a card issued by a union in order to let the union represent them, according to Associated Students of Madison Student Council Rep. Colin Ingram.
The cards would then be submitted to WERC to make sure they are legitimate.
“[It’s] not enough to sign a piece of paper, it’s going to have to be an official card.” Ingram said.
A main difference between the secret ballot election and the authorization cards is that more would have to participate in the authorization checks than an election.
According to Davis, in an election, if there are 1,000 RAs and only 200 votes, then union representation could be decided if 101 RAs vote to do so.
If RAs decide they want to use authorization cards, then 501 RAs out of the 1,000 RAs would have to sign the cards.
Ingram said RAs can apply to WERC to use a secret ballot and authorization cards in case WERC finds the authorization cards to not be legitimate.
There are three different groups of RAs in the UW System — those at UW and UW-Extensions, UW-Milwaukee and every other college and university in the UW System.
Each of those groups could decide to use a different method to elect union representation or decide they do not want to unionize.
According to Davis, the meeting Thursday is the next step to giving the proposed rules for RA unionization the rule of law. After the public meeting, the suggestions will be reviewed by WERC.
Students who cannot make the meeting can submit any suggestions to the proposed rules to WERC offices by March 22.
ASM has not submitted an opinion on whether unions should be formed or which method of appointing unions would be better. Tobelmann said ASM is functioning as a conduit to let RAs know their options for representation.
