Negotiators for the UW-Madison Teaching Assistants’ Association and the State of Wisconsin have come to a tentative agreement on new contract language for the 2001-2003 biennium. If the new contract is approved, the university will increase wages for graduate employees an average of 6.8 percent in two years and will raise the level of child-care compensation.
“It’s not such a dramatic pay increase that we’re ecstatic, but it’s as good as we can expect,” TAA Vice President Christer Watson said.
He said the increase barely covers inflation, set at 6 percent.
Members of the TAA also expressed disappointment that the state Department of Employment Relations did not support a plan to offer graduate employees reimbursement for domestic partners’ health care costs, which they said would have brought UW’s benefits package in line with those already offered by over 150 colleges and universities.
“Given Wisconsin’s current fiscal difficulties, we are satisfied that the wage increase is as good as we can expect,” Maggie Hogan, TAA co-president, said.
Other changes to the contract include benefiting hourly project assistants by guaranteeing them tuition remission and assuring that every TA has access to basic resources such as photocopying supplies and office facilities. But members are not completely content with the lack of respect their demands for health benefits for a member’s living partner in a non-marriage relationship receive.
“We’re extremely disappointed, though, with the continued impasse over domestic partner benefits,” Hogan added. “The university has signaled its readiness to erase the inequality between married and unmarried partners, but the state is simply unwilling to follow the lead of the majority of top ten universities.”
Representatives from the employee relations department were unavailable for comment over the weekend.
Union members now are in the process of ratifying the contract by paper ballot, in which they will have a single vote for all contract changes. Before going into effect, the contract must also be approved by the state’s joint committee on employee relations. Watson was unable to give a date when the contract will be finalized.
The TAA is the oldest graduate employee union in the United States and is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers and the South Central Federation of Labor. It represents nearly 2,900 teaching and project assistants.
“I wouldn’t say that we’re satisfied with the new contract,” Watson said. “We always feel like we’re worth more than we get, as most workers are.”
