One side makes a carefully deliberated move, then waits. The other side ponders the most strategic way to counter the move before painstakingly making one of its own. The first side, not having achieved what it would like, again considers its next move. And on it goes.
In a back-and-forth volley reminiscent of the game of chess, the University of Wisconsin Teaching Assistants’ Association and the state have spent the last 10 months in contract negotiations that have so far proved fruitless.
Contract negotiations have now stalled as TAA and state negotiators find themselves at an impasse. With tension between the two sides of the bargaining table increasing, frustrated members of the TAA voted in a union meeting March 25 to consider striking and taking other job actions in response to the failed contract negotiations.
“I feel like the (TAA) bargaining-team members go in with the hopes of securing a fair contract, and the university and state really just aren’t listening. There just haven’t been any successful negotiations,” said Tina Chang, co-president of the TAA.
While it is illegal under state law for members of the TAA to strike, the organization has formed a committee to examine different job actions that can be taken in response to failed contract negotiations, according to Jon Puthoff, a graduate student and TA in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Puthoff said these actions could include short-term walkouts and grade strikes, but he refused to speculate as to exactly when these actions might take place, only saying they will “likely” be seen by mid-April.
“If something like this were to come about, we would want to keep it under wraps and then do it at the best possible time strategically,” Puthoff said.
Approximately 350 TAA union members attended the March 25 meeting, where they voted to initiate a two-step process that moves the union toward strike activity. Because a large number of TAA members were not at the meeting, the first step of the process will be to organize TAA members and get signatures on a private petition, according to Melissa Thompson, the TAA publicity chair.
“There’s a big organizing movement going on right now,” Thompson said, adding that since March 25, more than 100 TAA members have volunteered to organize and go out and talk to other TAs.
Thompson said only TAA members in certain departments on campus, known as affected departments, will actually strike. She said affected departments are those departments that have a strategic location and high number of TAA members. According to Thompson, the TAA wanted to choose departments located in buildings that have a high visibility, so that faculty and students will see picketing and other demonstrations. The chosen affected departments include over 1,000 TAA members.
Thompson said the organizing part of the process would likely take a couple of weeks. The second step of the process will be to issue a paper ballot asking only TAA members in the affected departments if they support going on strike. This ballot will officially decide whether TAs will go on strike and will need a two-thirds vote to pass.
While TAA members continue with plans to strike or take other job actions, Director of the State of Wisconsin Office of Employment Relations Karen Timberlake warned that TAs do face the possibility of reprimand if they choose to break the law and their contracts by striking.
“There are a number of possible consequences for unions who do strike,” Timberlake said in a March 22 interview at The Badger Herald.
Timberlake said the TAA might have to pay for some of the expenses the state would incur from a strike, such as hiring additional help. She said union members can also be punished for striking, adding that if TAA members decide to strike, it would effectively halt negotiations for as long as they remain on strike.
“I think it happens in virtually every bargaining cycle that you get close to the end, and there’s hostility, and you hope you can meet in the middle. It remains to be seen at this point whether the TAA can find enough in what we’ve put on the table or if there are ways we can tweak what we’ve put on the table to try to get them to a point where they feel they can accept and ratify a contract with us,” Timberlake said.
Although the University of Wisconsin is part of the state side of the bargaining table, UW vice chancellor of administration Darrell Bazzell said faculty and administrators support the TAA and its efforts. He said the university has no plan that could be activated if TAA members were to go on strike.
“At this point, I don’t know how we would handle such an event. We just hope that this whole negotiation comes to a prompt resolution,” Bazzell said.
How it got to this point
UW TAs have been working under an extension of their 2001-03 contract since state negotiations for a renewed TAA contract began in July 2003, according to Chang. The TAA contracts are effective for two years, with the contract currently being negotiated beginning July 1, 2003, and running through June 2005.
Of the 3,000 teaching assistants and project assistants at UW, approximately 1,700 are members of the TAA. However, all TAs and PAs receive the contract bargained for by the TAA.
Chang said the main issue both sides of the bargaining table cannot agree upon is whether TAs should continue to receive zero-cost health care as one of their benefits. Although TAs have traditionally received free health care, the state wants to see that benefit eliminated from the contract.
Timberlake said the state wants all state employees to begin paying for at least part of their health care. She said Gov. Jim Doyle’s administration is trying to balance a $3.2 billion budget deficit, and one of the ways this can be done is by having state employees contribute to the rising cost of health care.
“We’ve made a policy decision that all state employees need to be contributing something toward the cost of this very valuable and, quite frankly, very expensive benefit,” Timberlake said.
Timberlake said the state is in one of the worst financial situations it has experienced in 20 years, and state negotiators are constrained by the amount of money they have to work with at the bargaining table.
“The reality of it is that all I can do is bargain with the resources available. I can’t overspend, and I can’t invent money that can somehow be put toward employee compensation,” Timberlake said.
However, UW sociology TA and TAA vice president Rebekah Ravenscroft-Scott said UW TAs currently make approximately $10,000 a year, which is 15 to 20 percent less than what TAs at comparable public institutions make.
“Traditionally, we have always gotten zero-cost health care. And we have always taken low pay in order to get this,” Ravenscroft-Scott said.
The state’s current proposal includes a 0 percent pay increase in the first year of the contract and a 1.25 percent raise in the second year, along with eliminating the zero-cost health care benefit. The state has proposed a $9 a month premium for individuals and $22.50 a month premium for family health care for the current academic year.
Puthoff said under the state’s current proposal, the low pay increase combined with the elimination of zero-cost health care means the TAs would actually be accepting a pay cut.
“The simple fact of the matter is that the contract the state is offering amounts to a simple de facto pay cut. It’s a simple economic thing,” Puthoff said.
However, Timberlake maintains that the state is working under constraints but does want to remain at the bargaining table.
“Our position and our interest in this is for them to stay at the table and keep talking and try to work through as much of this as we can work through. I don’t know if they think there’s a rabbit that can be pulled out of a hat, but there just isn’t,” Timberlake said.
Thompson said the current situation is “serious.” She said there is nothing more the TAA can do at the bargaining table.
“The ball is in the state’s court. We’ve been moving not only toward the middle but past the middle,” Thompson said. “We’ve pretty much exhausted all our options of what we can do at our end.”
