Depending on the source, some would argue the state is offering University of Wisconsin teaching and project assistants more total compensation for their services than the finishing level of their last contract’s negotiation.

This claim would seem, at a glance, unjustified because the Office of State Employee Relations (OSER) has yet to offer an increase in wages for the first year under contract and proposed to start charging a monthly health-care premium of $9 for individuals and $22.50 for families and partners. This predicament could eventually lead TAA members to strike for the first time in 24 years.

However, both the graduate tuition and the cost for health care incurred by the state will top a $9-a-month increase. UW Vice Chancellor of Administration Darrell Bazzell said tuition — part of the compensation TAs and PAs receive — has been rising by about $350 a semester, and OSER Executive Assistant Susan Crawford said health care rose 13.8 percent and 11.1 percent in 2003 and 2004 respectively, adding about $30 for individuals or $100 for families to what the state has paid in total compensation a month compared to previous years.

Crawford said the value of TA benefits increases with time, though she added that the state’s budget constraints restrict ideal conditions.

“The state is in a pretty difficult situation,” Crawford said, noting Gov. Jim Doyle took office with an existing $3.2 billion shortfall in state budgets. “We just don’t have the money to offer.”

Crawford also said Wisconsin and Doyle remain committed to the state of higher education, despite more than $250 million in cuts to the UW System.

Although UW and state negotiators could face a strike threat from some departments as early as mid-April, Crawford told TAA members that a strike “is not going to change” state budget restrictions. Despite state statutes prohibiting TAA strikes, Crawford said the state could discipline TAA members who walk out.

Bazzell hopes it does not get that far. “We hope [a work stoppage] can be avoided,” he said.

Bazzell, a UW member on OSER’s side of the bargaining table, said in an interview that the Department of Administration’s office would be able to find more funds to pay TAs.

“I hope they would recognize a fair living-wage base … compared to other universities,” Bazzell said. Bazzell commented that, from the research he has seen recently, UW’s TAs and PAs get paid less and receive fewer benefits than other Big Ten universities and other prestigious peer schools. The possibility of a contract with increased money and benefits could still be offered to the TAA because negotiations are ongoing, Crawford said.

“We’re still in communication,” Crawford said, though she did not say who would make the next proposal.

“We don’t have a bargaining process … it has broken down,” TAA spokesman Mike Quieto said. “We can’t sit on this forever.”

Quieto also said many TAA union members, now counting more than 1900 card carriers, do not fear the consequences of Crawford’s menacing claims of fining or disciplining striking TAs. Quieto referred to a state employee strike in 1977, where he said no workers were disciplined. “You only strike when it’s effective.”

Quieto also said other state employees might not cross picket lines due to their philosophical beliefs.

“We have a lot of allies … There are faculty who would not cross picket lines,” Quieto said.

Crawford, conversely, held that the TAA could voice concerns in a legal manner, such as filing an unfair-labor-practice complaint with Wisconsin’s Employment Relations Commission.

Although Quieto said the union could reserve that right, he said if the TAA would only submit a legal complaint, it would take the power out of the members’ hands and put the power into a lawyer’s.

“They’re behaving like frightened management,” Quieto said of the state’s threats.

Quieto finished by saying UW’s consistent tuition raises and decreasing state support over the past decade are “symptoms of the same disease” as the TAA’s struggle to get more funding.

“A lot of people are realizing that this is a result of years and years of underfunding the university. We’re already slipping … They cut so much fat years ago, we’ve started to bleed.”