Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

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HR restructuring sparks salary, benefits concerns

After review of the initial recommendations for the University of Wisconsin Human Resource system released a month ago, some concerns have been raised about whether the changes will help or hinder university employees.

The initial recommendations came from seven work teams, and included benefits, compensation, competencies, a diverse workforce, employee categories, recruitment and assessment and titles.

The Wisconsin University Union focused their feedback for the recommendations on those released by the compensation work team.

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WUU is concerned the evidence used to establish the salaries of UW’s employees is based on undefined labor markets. Which labor market UW employees are compared to – university labor markets, private sector labor markets and the like – will have the potential to lower workers’ salaries, WUU spokesperson David Ahrens said.

Although these changes may not affect current workers, WUU fears they will create a two-tier wage system with future employees.

“I think our purpose is to educate people on campus about what the proposals are,” Ahrens said. “I think there’s been a lot of talk, very grand generalizations being made and very short on specifics about what the proposals are and what their implications are.”

Vice Chancellor for Administration Darrell Bazzell countered the criticism, saying it was unfounded. He said that from the beginning of the project it was stressed that, with the new system, employees would not lose compensation and there would be exceptions.

Bazzell said he is not aware of any circumstances where an employee has lost any salary under the market-based approach to determine compensation that has been recommended for the HR system.

“We currently operate under a market-based system, and the system proposed for UW-Madison is also a market-based system,” Bazzell said. “There’s a long track record of working under a market-based system.”

The Academic Staff Executive Committee also raised concerns over the preliminary recommendations suggested for the new HR system in a report published last week.

In the report, ASEC provided feedback on the recommendations of the employee categories work team, who suggested including classified staff in the same category as academic staff.

ASEC said the employee categories work team should revise their recommendations by either modestly restructuring the categories of university employees or ceasing to change the categories in any way.

The ASEC report added by combining the two employee categories, classified employees would lose the collective bargaining rights they possess. In order for academic staff to obtain the collective bargaining rights they do not currently possess, legislation would have to be passed.

The report added if the employee categories are combined and the state law gave collective bargaining rights to academic staff, the academic staff may be placed into a labor union without consent.

Bazzell said the project is still in its early stages and feedback from the campus community will continue to be considered. The system must be implemented by July 1, 2013 after passing through the Board of Regents and state Legislature.

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