Negotiations for the Teaching Assistants’ Association contracts at the University of Wisconsin hit another road block Monday morning when the state negotiators stood firm on a health care cost increase, resulting in TAA members walking out. The TAA negotiators stayed at the table and finished the planned period of bargaining with the state labor relations officials.
About 60 TAA members found the state’s request to make TAs pay for their health care unreasonable. The state negotiators proposed the graduate students pay $9 a month for individual persons and $22.50 for family coverage. The current TAA contract dictates the state pay for their health plan, according to a TAA press release.
“This is just simply unacceptable,” TAA co-president, law student and fifth year education administration graduate student Tina Chang said.
Liz Galewski, a TA in communication arts, noted her distaste for the negotiations this year, and how important health care is to TAs.
“Historically, we TAs have been willing to not make a lot of money, because at least there’s health care,” Galewski said.
Galewski said if the state had its way as of now, TAs and project assistants would not only have to pay for health care in the future, but the decision would also have a retroactive effect. Galewski said the state would try to charge students for health care starting January 2004, and even charge those TAs that have left UW.
“I felt disrespected,” Galewski said, adding she feels the state has a duty to pay for “adequate” coverage for the instructors of tomorrow’s leaders. She said she was especially disappointed that state negotiator Bert St. Louis would pursue students to pay retroactively.
“That just seemed mean,” Galewski said.
Susan Crawford, executive assistant in the Office of State Employment Relations, said she thinks negotiations eliminating no-cost health coverage are just.
“We are asking the TAs to contribute to the growing problem of health care costs, just as we are asking all state employees,” Crawford said. “We think this is a fair offer.” Crawford added the UW-Milwaukee TA union already agreed to a similar contract. Chang countered that less than 600 members are in the Milwaukee union, whereas more than 3,000 members are covered with the UW TAA contract. Without the TAs or PAs, UW would not run, she said.
The state has held negotiations for a renewed TAA contract since July of 2003. The TAA contracts have an effective period of two years, and the fiscal year starts July 1 and runs through June 2005. Crawford said last fiscal period’s TAA contract was temporarily extended to cover the current TAs until the new agreement is set.
“Unfortunately, this is not an unusual scenario,” Crawford said, but added the eight months of pressure to have a contract signed does not deter the state from finishing the deal. “We are very willing to talk with the (TAA) union.”
Chief negotiator for the TAA Danielle LeClair, a political science graduate student, also felt other issues such as mandatory diversity training (and compensation for it), domestic partner benefits and childcare benefits are being neglected by the state.
She also said without proper health care, UW might not be able to attract the best graduate student and TA candidates.
“I have had several graduate students come to me and say they would not have come here in the first place [if UW did not offer health care],” LeClair said. LeClair also said the TAA will not receive a pay raise this year, and would receive “only” a 1.7 percent increase the following year under state offers.
LeClair added, “As soon as we get a good contract [that our members are asking for], we’ll sign.” She does not forecast agreement on both sides for some time.
