The Teaching Assistants Association has not held any bargaining meetings this semester to discuss their current contracts. Negotiations between the TAA and the Wisconsin Office of State Employee Relations ended after the TAA presented a new contract proposal early last May and it remains unclear where the negotiations will lead in the coming months.

According to Mike Quieto, chair of the Political Education Committee, the TAA offered a 1.7 percent wage increase if the state preserved the TAA’s health care. If the state refused, the TAA offered to pay health care if the state would raise their wages, Quieto said.

Seven months after the contract proposal to the state, the stalemate between the two sides continues.

“It is in the best interest of all of us to get this resolved next semester,” Dean of the College of Letters and Science Gary Sandefur said. Sandefur said he does not know where negotiations between the TAA and the state will lead, however.

“I haven’t talked with anyone from the TAA this semester,” Sandefur said.

OSER Department Director Karen Timberlake could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Quieto said no meeting to discuss bargaining is scheduled for at least the next two weeks.

The TAA has worked on training new members this semester to replace those who graduated in the spring, Quieto said. He said the Association has a good bargaining team and has added 60 new stewards this semester. Stewards act as workplace contact people, talking to members of the TAA and finding out what is in their best interest.

Quieto said the TAA has concentrated on a number of ongoing, everyday union activities thus far this semester, including the extension of enforcement of their contract, making certain management is following provisions they have agreed to and ensuring no members are working beyond the hours they are paid for.

The TAA was very active during the election season, Quieto said.

“We did great work on the elections,” he said.

The TAA volunteered more than 1,000 hours of their time, including participation in the Election Protection National Group in Madison and Milwaukee, Quieto said. Members of the TAA stood outside polling places in the two cities to make sure everyone was informed of their voting rights.

“That’s the best tradition of democracy,” Quieto said.

Negotiations with the state are expected to heat up in the coming months after the legislature returns to session Jan. 5, 2005.

However, Quieto said there are other items on the agenda, in particular the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights, which are dangerous to the University of Wisconsin and of concern to the TAA. The bill would freeze taxes as well as put caps on how much state and local governments could spend, Quieto said.

“It’s the single biggest threat to my paycheck and [students’] tuition bills,” he said.