Teaching Assistants stay contract-free
by Matthew Dolbey
Campus Editor
The labor union responsible for negotiating teaching-assistant and program-assistant contracts at the University of Wisconsin left the bargaining table Wednesday without a new contract or major concessions by the state negotiators.
Brad Manzolillo, vice president of bargaining for the TAA, said the talks did not go well, adding the state made no concessions in its counteroffer to the most recent TAA submission.
“We don’t consider this [state offer] a new proposal,” Manzolillo said. He added the last proposal the TAA submitted asked for either market wages ? a salary similar in amount to peer universities or the zero-premium health-care plan TAs and PAs now get as a benefit. Manzolillo disclosed the TAA has found UW TAs get paid 15 to 20 percent less than other Big Ten Conference universities.
The health-care benefit, which under the state proposal would rise from free under the current plan to $9 monthly premiums for individuals and $22.50 for families and rising more than 20 percent the following year to $11 for individuals and $27.50 for families. The state also proposed TAA members should pay for the health care retroactively since the month of January 2004.
Manzolillo said since the state does not offer to raise TAA members’ salaries in the first year, and a modest increase of little over 1 percent the second year in its latest offer, he believes it is up to state negotiators to revive the talks.
“The ball’s in their court,” Manzolillo said. “It’s up to them to contact us.”
Manzolillo continued to say that health care, the issue the TAA is most concerned with at this point, is an issue the state seems unwilling to budge on. He added the state’s refusal to offer free health care is a “philosophical, not economic issue.”
Manzolillo also added that the state negotiators said they would rather support a higher effective salary to the TAs rather than allow for health care.
The TAA held a “grade-in” in Bascom Hall yesterday morning and afternoon, where more than a dozen TAs sat in the main lobby on Bascom’s first floor. The point was to gather attention to the ongoing negotiations and educate administrators, according to a TAA release.
UW officials are represented on the state side of the bargaining team. Susan Crawford, the executive assistant at the Office of State Employee Relations, said traditionally each campus’ human-and-labor-relations department sits in at the table.
Manzolillo said some UW officials support TAA’s fight for free health care but “would like a stronger public statement” from the university. The UW Faculty Senate publicly supported the TAA in state negotiations at a meeting earlier this semester.
John Bowman, a Math 221 TA, looked up from some calculus homework Wednesday noontime and said health care and TAA negotiations are not just a big deal for the TAs but for all students.
“It’s important people are concerned about this issue,” Bowman said.
The Catacombs offered free lunches to the sit-ins, distributing brown lunch bags with uplifting markings such as “Catacombs loves TAA.”
The TAA, representing more than 3,000 graduate student employees at UW, has gone without a contract for approximately nine months, and is currently working under a contract extension with similar terms to the 2001-03 contracts. After the TAA and state negotiators agree to a contract, the proposition would go to an Assembly committee, would be voted on by the Wisconsin Legislature and then approved or vetoed by Gov. Jim Doyle. The state negotiators currently report to Doyle’s Department of Administration.
