Gov. Tony Evers signed Wisconsin Act 92 and Act 93 into effect Monday. These acts will provide a 4% increase in wages for 35,000 University of Wisconsin–Madison and UW System building trades employees starting July 2, according to a press release from the Office of the Governor.
Evers and the Wisconsin State Legislature approved the pay raises last July for the 2023-2025 biennial budget, but have been delayed since then because the Republican-led Joint Committee on Employment Relations — co-chaired by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) — declined voting on the raises according to previous reporting by The Badger Herald.
Vos said in October the raises would not be approved until the UW System made concessions on it’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, according to The Badger Herald. The Board of Regents voted to accept a deal in December exchanging pay raises and other funding for the “reimagining” of certain DEI positions, according to The Badger Herald’s previous coverage of the deal.
“While I’m glad these well-deserved pay increases will finally be in the hands of the UW building trades employees who’ve earned them, these workers never should have had their wages held up for political games in the first place,” Evers said in the release.
According to UW–Madison expert on employee compensation professor Barry Gerhart, the standard annual wage increase for UW–Madison employees has typically been around 3%. This increase is important because it ensures UW–Madison remains competitive with other top universities, Gerhart said.
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This raise is beneficial to Wisconsin because the university relies heavily on human capital to maintain it’s reputation as a leading public university, according to Gerhart.
“It’s just hard to be a top university without being competitive in terms of what you offer your employees,” Gerhart said. “Students want to go somewhere where they have the best faculty, the best staff, the best teachers, the best researchers who are doing work to advance knowledge and to produce innovations that are good for society.”
