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Orientation Organizing Campaign Kickoff Events!

July 27, 2009

Our summer and fall Orientation Organizing Campaign is getting ready to kick off. This campaign is going to be really important to build our union to be strong and successful. Our union should be of, by, and for rank-and-file members, and this campaign is going to have a big impact on building that kind of union.

Orientation is when we engage with hundreds to thousands of new graduate assistants. When they arrive on campus, we need to engage with each and everyone one of them through the Orientation process to sign them up as members, educate them about our union, and involve them in participation in our union's work.

This campaign will start in August and run through the first few weeks of school. Our Orientation Committee has put together a great campaign plan - and we need you to be a part of it. You can sign up now to get involved in the ways that work for you now.

To kick off our campaign, we are going to hold four Orientation Organizing Campaign kickoff events. The kickoffs will have free food and beverage for all members - and most importantly, we'll run through the campaign plan and strategy, help people plug into the campaign as activists, and build the excitement, energy and momentum we need to run a great campaign.

The four dates for the Orientation Organizing Campaign Kickoff events will be August 5th, August 11th, August 16th, and August 20th. They'll start at 6 PM, and we're holding them at the TAA office. Sign up now to attend one (or more) of the campaign kickoffs here. We want to plan well for each kickoff, so definitely take a minute to let us know which one you can attend.

And make sure to sign up now for how you can be involved in our Orientation Organizing Campaign. There are lots of ways to be involved, making it easy for brand-new activists and hardcore unionists alike to make a big impact on this important campaign. So sign up to be involved and let us know which of the campaign kickoff events you can attend. If you have any questions about the campaign or our kickoff events, be in touch with our Orientation Committee co-chairs Peter Rickman and Tim Frandy.

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Get Involved in Your Union: Join the Orientation Organizing Campaign

Our union is built upon rank-and-file members organizing among ourselves, the union being our vehicle for collective action. One of our best opportunities to engage new graduate assistants to get involved in our union, from becoming members to becoming activists, is through each fall's Orientation. With hundreds, even thousands of new graduate assistants coming to campus for the first time, we need to connect with them all to bring them into our union right away.

This summer and into fall, we are running a big, important Orientation Organizing Campaign. For us to run a successful campaign, we need all members of our union to be active in the campaign. Our Orientation Committee has put together a dynamic campaign plan that you can plug into easily to have a big impact. But we need you to get involved. Take a moment and complete this quick online form to get involved - then, a fellow grad worker activist from the Orientation Committee will be in touch with you. If you have any questions on the campaign, feel free to just contact our Orientation Committee co-chairs, Peter Rickman and Tim Frandy.

Being involved is easy, and it's really important. This campaign will not only set the tone for how we run a dynamic, strong organizing union, but also build the cadre of member-activists that make our union work. Can you take a moment to sign up to be involved on our Orientation Organizing Campaign?

We have ambitious goals as a union for this year, for the future, and for this campaign. But for our union to really work for us as graduate assistants, we need to be involved. This campaign is how we will build that among new graduate assistants as well as ourselves as current union members. Get involved now to build a strong, successful union.

Let's go out and build the best campaign to build the best union possible for ourselves.

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Update Your Union Information!

A good union is of, by, and for its rank-and-file members. We work for ourselves as rank-and-file members; we take ownership for a strong, successful union, made up of rank-and-file members.

A good union is one in which rank-and-file members are connected, engaged, involved, and active - creating the "of, by, for" dynamic. To connect with one another, to engage in the work of the union, to get involved, and to get active, we need to have good information for everyone.

You can take a small, easy step to help build this kind of strong, successful union by updating your membership information, using this quick online form.

Filling out this form, you'll make sure that your union can be in touch with you. Filling out this form, you'll find out how you can be involved with your union and ensure that we can get you involved the right way for you. So take a moment and fill out this form so that you can be connected and engaged and so that you can get involved and active.

Take this simple step to update your union membership information so that we can build the best union possible for all of us graduate student workers. Your membership is your voice in your union, your union is your vehicle to advance graduate student worker interests, and your activism is your way to make this union work for all of us.

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Orientation Organizing Campaign

July 21, 2009

Organizing is the heart of unionism, connecting workers and building power to advance our shared interests. We need to organize to build and strengthen our union, and we're kicking off a major organizing drive in conjunction with upcoming department orientations and the beginning of the academic year.

Can you be involved? If you're interested, contact our Orientation Committee co-chairs Peter Rickman and Tim Frandy - or just fill out a quick online survey.

Orientation is typically when we add the most members to our union from the graduate assistants in our bargaining unit. Orientation is also typically when we recruit many of the activists that make our union work. Orientation is also when we form first impressions of our union - and that it even exists for unknowing new grad assistants - including building a union identity among the worker we represent. And the beginning of the academic year is an opportunity to engage current TAs and PAs around our union, building new membership, recruiting new activists, and building our union culture.

Our Orientation Organizing Campaign is going to be a tremendous opportunity with an exciting, well-run campaign to build our union. The Orientation Committee has put together a dynamic, well-constructed plan for organizing during the next two months, leading into and right after orientation and the beginning of the academic year. We need you to be involved to successfully organize and to build our union. There are lots of ways to be involved in a few different capacities.

Will you get involved? If so, or to find out more, contact our Orientation Committee co-chairs Peter Rickman and Tim Frandy - or just fill out a quick online survey.

We need folks to set up times to speak to department orientations. We need people to speak at these orientations. We need folks to help track data and information. We need people to follow up with the members we contact during orientations to plug them into the union. We need folks to help build the infrastructure of the campaign. In short, there are lots of ways to get involved, and we need you to be a part of this organizing campaign.

To find out more or to get involved right now, contact our Orientation Committee co-chairs Peter Rickman and Tim Frandy - or just fill out a quick online survey.

We'll be holding four campaign kickoff events on August 5th, 11th, 16th and 20th, so get them on your calendar and plan on showing up at one. They will be at the TAA office at 6 PM, with free food and beverage, in addition to a great program: we'll go over the campaign strategy, we'll train people on particular roles in the campaign, we'll hear from TAA activists and other labor leaders, and we'll get fired up for an important and exciting campaign of the TAA. See you then, and see you on the campaign trail!

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Update Your Union Information!

With the coming of a new academic year, the TAA needs to update its roster of information about all of us as rank-and-file members. We would like to have all of our members fill out an electronic of our "blue card," our normal membership card. Part of running a good organization is having proper information to put to use, including contact information for all members as well as information on how everyone wants to be involved in our union.

So please take a few moments to quickly fill out the online version of the blue card here.

Our union is a product of what we put into it. Just as the university works because we do, our union works because we do. A democratic union means we shape the direction of the union as active rank-and-file members and it means that we implement that direction as active rank-and-file members. We are strong when all are involved. For the strongest union possible to advance our interests as graduate student workers, we need you to be involved.

So make sure to fill out the online blue card by responding with a "yes" or "no" answer on some really important ways for you to be involved.

In this coming year, we will have a number of really important and exciting ways for everyone to be involved in our union. We are committed to involving all rank-and-file members as much as possible in making our union work, including putting together well-run campaigns that advance our union's cause as well as providing training and education for all rank-and-file members to be involved in a meaningful way. So again, please take a moment to fill out the online blue card.

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T-Shirt Design Contest Continues

As announced in our last e-newsletter, we are running a design contest for our 2009-2010 annual t-shirt. Take a look here for further details.

We need you to submit your ideas and designs. And we need you to have your submissions in by the end of this week. If you have any questions, please contact Orientation Committee co-chair Tim Frandy.

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Contract Update and Paycut Request Information

As we reported in our last e-newsletter, a request has been made from the Office of State Employment Relations (OSER) to have TAA members give up our duly-negotiated wage increases. Our Executive Board considered this request for a paycut to be imposed upon all TAs and PAs and debated it at length at our meeting tonight. We will recommend at the next General Membership Meeting that our union reject this request to cut graduate assistant wages.

While this request can be summarily dismissed or rejected by our elected Executive Board, we believe that it is best that a matter of our contract such as this should be considered and acted upon by all rank-and-file members through a General Membership Meeting. Again, at the next GMM, the Executive Board will submit a motion to reject OSER's request of us to give back our contractually guaranteed wage increase. At this meeting, we as the membership can vote to approve the motion and reject OSER's request or we can vote to accept it. If we reject it, nothing will change except the increases in our paychecks. If we accept it, then the matter must be voted upon by our entire membership via balloting.

This General Membership Meeting will be scheduled as soon as possible when graduate assistants return to campus in large numbers in late-summer/early-fall.

The Executive Board will recommend rejection of this request because we do not believe that TAs and PAs should give up wage increases for a number of reasons, to be enumerated and explained in our General Membership Meeting. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact Co-Presidents Katie Lindstrom and Peter Rickman.

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Stewards: Rank-and-File Leaders Needed

July 15, 2009

Active leadership right at the proverbial shopfloor of our workplace is a core aspect of having a strong union. Stewards organize workers, connect rank-and-file members with one another, advocate for and with workers at the department level, and serve as key leaders in the decision-making of our union. For our union to work as an organization of, by, and for graduate workers, we need a high quantity and quality of stewards. It has been said that the steward is the contract and the union made real for workers - and we need you to get involved in your union as a rank-and-file leader by being your department's steward.

We are beginning a campaign to recruit, train, and develop new stewards - and we want you to consider becoming one. For stewards past, present, and future, we will be training and educating rank-and-file activists who want to make our union work, building your capacity to be an effective union leader in your department. We will be building a cadre of empowered, skilled worker-activists who know what stewards do and how to do it, connected with other rank-and-file leaders through our Stewards Council.

Will you step up to make your union work and consider becoming a steward? Let us know if you want in. We want to hear from you if this sounds like something in which you might be interested. We will be putting together a Stewards Interest Session very soon, to bring together past, present, and potential future stewards, informing folks about stewarding and finding ways for interested activist members to be involved in this way. From there, we will be holding education and training sessions, in addition to ongoing and regular collaboration with fellow stewards, other union leaders, and our excellent staff.

But we need to hear from you - if you are interested in finding out more about becoming a steward or to sign up right away, contact our Co-Presidents Katie Lindstrom and Peter Rickman and we will follow up with you.

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2009-2010 TAA T-Shirt Design Contest

With a little graphic design talent or some applied creativity, you could be the designer of the 2009-2010 TAA t-shirt. Or, lacking the artistic talent to render your design onto paper but with the vision of a true artiste, you're welcome to submit a rough sketch that the TAA can have translated from dream to t-shirt reality. We are looking for your submissions for t-shirt designs that will grace the backs of many a graduate worker.

This year, in particular, we especially encourage designs that communicate the TAA's commitment to organize fellow graduate workers. Words and ideas that might be a part of this include "graduate workers united," "organizing," "unionism," "stronger together," and the like - maybe you have your own way to articulate that graduate workers organized in a union are a mighty force for economic and social justice in the academy.

As you craft a design, please be aware that we cannot use things that include material like UW logos (e.g. Bucky Badger, the stylized "W," etc) because of copyright. Because of our desire to be economical with printing, we are asking designers to keep their submissions to black and white. Right now, we are thinking of printing on t-shirts that are either black, white, or red - but let the inspiration guide your design.

Submit your design ideas to Tim Frandy of the Orientation Committee by Friday, July 24th. Our Orientation Committee will select a winning design concept - and the artist producing it will receive a prize of a $50 gift card to the Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative, not to mention the satisfaction and pride of seeing thousands of fellow graduate workers sporting his or her design around campus.

Previous designs as well as a black-and-white version of the TAA logo can be found here:

With any questions, please contact Tim.

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Contract Update: OSER Request to Give Back Wage Increase

As many of you know, the economic and state fiscal crisis has produced reaction in Wisconsin government including a request for public employees to give back the 2% wage increases slated for the current and coming fiscal years. Non-union workers have had this wage decrease unilaterally imposed upon them; because of the nature of union representation, this cannot be done to unionized workers and instead must proceed through negotiation. Union representation means negotiating between management and workers as equals. After an initial announcement from the Governor that state employee unions would be asked to give back the wage increases negotiated in their contracts, unions including the TAA have formally been solicited by the Office of State Employment Relations (OSER) to do so.

While our contract is still not ratified by the state legislature - though we expect that to be completed soon - this request must be considered by our union. Ultimately, because we are a democratic body, a decision of this weight and associated with our collective bargaining agreement (the contract) must be decided upon by our rank-and-file membership. In the coming week or so, we will need you to participate in this decision.

Here is how things will work: Our Executive Board has received from OSER the request and we will consider it, gathering information beyond what we have already done on the topic. After deliberation, the Executive Board will put together a recommendation to forward to all rank-and-file members for consideration, with options of either rejecting the request to give back our duly-negotiated wage increase or accepting with conditions. Because this request means a re-opening of our contract, other provisions are subject to negotiation. If the request is to be accepted, other improvements will have to be bargained in trade. However, giving back wages now is a de facto paycut now as well as an erosion of our base pay rate for all future contracts. From here, our rank-and-file membership will decide upon a course of action, either through an email vote or in an Emergency General Membership Meeting to take place either over the summer or immediately upon the return of the academic year.

This is a critical topic for our union and for all of us in so many ways. Your participation in this decision, a right of membership in a democratic body and a democratic union, is vital. So stay tuned for further information and a call to action. With any questions at this point, please contact Co-Presidents Peter Rickman and Katie Lindstrom.

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We Are Not Alone: Redux

The TAA is oldest among many graduate worker unions across the country, with brothers and sisters literally from coast to coast and parts in between. Some locals are affiliated with our parent union, the American Federation of Teachers, while others are affiliated with the United Auto Workers and the Communications Workers of America. Within the UW System, the TAA is joined by the Milwaukee Graduate Assistants Association (MGAA), AFT #3220. We share much in common, including objectives of advancing the interests of graduate workers at UW schools, improving the academy and higher education, and building an academic labor movement. The possibilities of and potential for collaboration between the TAA and the MGAA, from bargaining to organizing to political action are myriad and plentiful.

However, our unions previously have not put together a coherent and consistent program for collaboration and partnership. With this in mind, the TAA and the MGAA recently put together an initial summit of Co-Presidents and staff to begin to outline how we can work together both better and more. This group met, facilitated by staff from our state federation, AFT-Wisconsin, for a whole day's worth of discussion and strategizing. From the MGAA, Co-Presidents Jessica Stender and Lee Abbott as well as staffperson Paul Sickel joined the TAA's Co-Presidents Katie Lindstrom and Peter Rickman as well as staffperson Claiborne Hill in conversations about collective bargaining and our contracts, action in the local, state, and national political arenas, internal and external organizing. Throughout the summit, from introductory conversations about our respective locals and their general characteristics and directions to substantive discussions on the aforementioned content, we pursued the creation of shared space between and within our local unions as well as the formulation of concrete steps to actualize our vision for cross-union collective action.

The summit produced both lively discussion and a set of next steps to pursue. Prior to the summit, our respective leaderships agreed that our initial meeting would in fact be the first of much collaboration, formal and informal both. To that end, we decided upon a framework to engage our own local memberships and create venues for cross-union participation of all, from rank-and-file members to engaged activists to elected leaders. This summit represented a beginning to our collaboration and a first step toward expanded engagement between our memberships to work with one another.

As unionists, we believe in collective action as a first principle. We entered this summit hoping to fulfill that by creating more and greater collectivity in our action as unionists and with our unions. The productive content, as well as simply getting to know one another initially, means that we can work as a coherent academic and graduate labor movement here in Wisconsin and beyond. In the coming weeks and months, the TAA and the MGAA will be working to formulate ways for our unions and our members to get to know another, to work together, and to achieve shared goals and objectives. This summit began that process, and we will look forward with great excitement to connecting our unions with one another. As much as anything, this summit proved to each respective union that we can and should be working together with so much in common both in environment and orientation.

As a step in the beginning of bringing together the TAA and the MGAA for shared collective action, our summit yielded gains for each union individually as well as in building for ourselves the prospects of a united graduate labor movement in the UW System for all graduate workers, be we in Madison or Milwaukee. Now, we set ourselves upon the tasks of making that real, and we look forward to our rank-and-file memberships participating deeply in that enterprise.

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TAA-Represented Workers Exempt From Furloughs

July 6, 2009

In a big victory for graduate assistants, workers represented by the TAA will be exempted from state employee furloughs. Earlier this year in response to a state fiscal crisis, the Governor of Wisconsin announced that all state employees would be subject to unpaid furloughs of eight days per year, or sixteen days per biennium. However, these furloughs will not affect teaching, project, and program assistants, all workers represented by the TAA, under the implementation plan worked out with the University of Wisconsin and the Office of State Employment Relations.

Furloughs would have been unpaid days off without a reduction in workload or unpaid days off where graduate workers would not be adding to the teaching, research, and outreach missions of the UW. Instead, graduate workers at UW-Madison and those at UW-Milwaukee, represented by our sister union, the Milwaukee Graduate Assistants Association, will continue conducting vital work for our universities.

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Contract Progresses

With recent developments, our 2007-2009 contract appears to be moving forward through the state government processes, one step away from official ratification and implementation.

In the last update for our rank-and-file members, we reported on background information and progress in moving our 2007-2009 contract forward. The state legislature's Joint Committee on Employment Relations (JoCER, or "joker") must take up the contract, as forwarded by the Office of State Employment Relations (OSER). We have officially submitted a request to OSER to put forward the contract for legislative ratification, to be considered at the next meeting of JoCER. At this time, the JoCER meeting is not yet scheduled, but we expect that this will take place soon. Further, we expect that when JoCER takes up our contract, we will see final passage of the collective bargaining agreement and subsequent implementation.

Remember, you are eligible for "backpay" if you were in pay status in April of 2009. Make sure that your current contact information is up to date with UW Payroll.

With any questions, please contact either our Co-Presidents, Peter Rickman and Katie Lindstrom, or our Vice President of Bargaining, Kevin Gibbons.

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Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions Conference

In our last membership email and update, we spoke of the Alliance of Graduate Employee Local (AGEL) conference and the attendance by a group of TAA activists. AGEL is a grouping of AFT-affiliated graduate workers unions. But beyond AFT locals in the grad labor movement, there are other grad unions affiliated with other unions such as the United Autoworkers (UAW). The AFT and UAW locals, as well as others, both within the United States and Canada, have a grouping called the Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions (CGEU).

Each year, CGEU holds an annual conference with workshops, panels, discussions, and training sessions by and for grad worker union activists. This year, the CGEU conference will be held in Toronto, Canada from July 23-26. As in each budget, the TAA has allocated money for a small group of attendees to go to the CGEU conference.

If you are interested in attending the conference as a representative of the TAA and participating in the conference, please contact Co-Presidents Katie Lindstrom and Peter Rickman by Thursday, July 9th at 5 PM.

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Organizing Does Not Take a Summer Vacation

July 1, 2009

Organizing is at the heart of unionism, and it is a vital part of our local. As our union is our vehicle for collective action and power, organizing is what drives that forward. The activism of our members makes our union work, and we need everyone to be involved. This summer, our organizing program continues to build, and there are lots of ways to get involved. Read more below...

Connecting with fellow workers, talking about union and workplace issues, and identifying other potential activists and leaders are some of the things that are crucial to our organizing program. But running a good organizing program requires a lot more than just having members go out and talk to fellow workers. We need to have a good plan, we need to educate and train, we need to have good information, and we need to have a process. So while much of what occurs with our organizing program in the way of contacting fellow workers occurs during the school year, when everyone is on campus, the summer is a prime time to work on the background of organizing in addition to doing things like office visits, department meetings, activist trainings, and education sessions.

This summer, we have two main avenues through which to get involved, our Organizing Committee and our Orientation Committee. Every year, new and current teaching and project assistants go through departmental and other forms of orientation. This is perhaps our best, and certainly our most concentrated, way of reaching literally hundreds if not thousands of fellow grad workers at the UW. Putting together a great orientation organizing plan is key to having success bringing new and current workers into the union and getting them plugged in to who we are and what we do. This is also the time when many grad workers first learn about our union and even what a union is. So our Orientation Committee is working to put together this organizing plan, figure out logistics and details, and set in motion our work to organize grad workers through their orientation. The more people involved with the work of the Orientation Committee, the better we can reach the grad workers in our bargaining unit. So we want to invite you to get involved. Contact Orientation Committee co-chairs Tim Frandy and Peter Rickman to get involved yourself.

Our Organizing Committee is the standing body we have to run full-time organizing throughout the year. Because we have ambitious goals and objectives with our organizing, the work of our Organizing Committee over the summer is vital to running good program between September and May. The Organizing Committee is working this summer to develop more fully its action plan, conduct research and gather information, and begin with core elements like training and education of activists and even beginning to contact fellow members in organizing. Organizing is how we build relationships, keep members engaged in the union, and move forward our programmatic agenda. This is a great way for everyone to be involved because anyone can do it and we will ensure that all activists can be involved in a meaningful way for themselves. To get involved yourself, contact our temporary Organizing Committee leader Tim Frandy or Co-Presidents Katie Lindstrom and PPeter Rickman.

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We Are Not Alone: the TAA and AGEL

We are not alone.

While the TAA was the first graduate workers union to form, many other grad workers at many other schools have unionized.  We are part of a larger grad worker and academic labor movement.  Every fall and spring, a group of grad unions get together as part of the Alliance of Graduate Employee Locals (AGEL).  Recently, a contingent of TAA activists traveled to the spring 2009 edition of the AGEL conference.  Read more on the grad union movement and the AGEL conference below…

Many of the grad union locals around the country are, like us, affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers (a union of professional workers that includes workers ranging from university faculty to doctors, lawyers, K12 teachers, and public employees at large).  AGEL is a part of AFT; in addition to AFT grad locals, there are other grad locals affiliated with other national unions like the UAW, and we are part of a similar grouping of grad locals through the Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions (CGEU).  The annual CGEU conference is coming up this summer.  

When a semi-annual AGEL meeting takes place, it is an opportunity for fellow grad union activists to come together to share stories and experiences, swapping both ideas and best practices.  It is also a chance to proverbially rally the troops and re-dedicate ourselves as activists to building a grad labor movement and an academic labor movement.  These AGEL conferences are great experiences to build and develop leadership and vision for our local, and they are also a great time with cool people.

At this spring’s AGEL, which took place in Eugene, OR and was hosted by the GTFF at the University of Oregon, there were plenary sessions, workshops, and discussions, led by fellow grad union activists.  Our TAA contingent both participated and led some of these sessions, learning from others but also sharing what we can to build this movement.  Compared to many other grad locals, as noted by some first-time AGEL attendees from the TAA, our own union local is relatively advanced.  From locals in Florida, an anti-union “right-to-work” state, who struggle to have enough members paying dues to sustain collective bargaining, to a local at Ohio State seeking to even have the right to organize a union and bargain collectively, and even to established locals going through the normal travails of grad unionism, there are different kinds of struggles and varying degrees of advancement in other grad locals.  

We learned about some of the strategies and tactics as well as programs run by other grad employee locals around collective bargaining, such as contract campaigns, on particular issues like threats to tuition waivers, and in the political process like electing and working with pro-labor public officials.  Seeing that other union locals do in fact do things differently, and with varying degrees of success, enables us to evaluate how we can improve our work.  And as much value as can be found in formal sessions, much of the value gleaned from a conference like AGEL comes from informal conversations with leaders from other grad locals.  

In addition to the great knowledge and understanding that comes from attending a conference like AGEL, such events are great ways for union members to see the bigger picture of the grad labor movement that goes beyond on our campus, our own classrooms and labs.  They are also great ways for union members to become activists, for activists to develop into leaders.  To that end, the TAA contingent worked to convince the assembled AGEL delegates to consider holding one of the next two conferences on our campus with the TAA as the host.  Hopefully soon, we can have dozens of our members attend an AGEL, building the pool of engaged activists learning from and participating in the conference, building the benefits for our union.  Stay tuned for more information.

Sending member-activists to AGELs builds our union, builds our capacity for action, and builds our leadership, all vital to deliver for our members, rank-and-file members making the union work for rank-and-file members.  


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Bargaining and Contract Update

Currently, our 2007-2009 contract has not yet been ratified and we continue to work under an extension of our 2005-2007 contract. Some developments with the 2007-2009 contract have occurred, and our 2009-2011 negotiations are beginning.

To begin, it is important to know how we negotiate our contracts. We bargain with both the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Office of State Employment Relations (OSER). After we negotiate a contract, the state legislature's Joint Committee on Employment Relations (JoCER, or "joker") has to ratify it with a vote. The 2007-2009 contract was settled with OSER and the UW back in December of 2008 and ratified by our rank-and-file membership that month as well. After this, our position and message to JoCER and OSER had been "Ratify, ratify, ratify." We wanted the contract implemented as soon as possible so that we would all see the pay raises we deserve and for the new workplace protections to go into effect. In addition to pay raises for the subsequent paychecks, we would be entitled to something akin to "backpay" for the hours we have worked during which the contract would apply (anything during the 2007-2009 contract cycle). 

However, OSER did not put together legislative language for a few months and by the time they sent it along to JoCER, the economic crisis manifested itself into a state fiscal crisis. What the TAA heard from some of the legislators on JoCER gave pause; they were uncertain that our duly-negotiated contract would even get passed because of the fiscal and political climate. It is really more of the latter; the money to pay for our 2007-2009 contract was budgeted and allocated two years ago. We are due raises and "backpay" and it will happen; right now it is a matter of political circumstances. 

If the contract did not get passed by JoCER, we would be back at square one, a place at which we did not want to be. All along, the pay raises and "backpay" would be retroactive, so we have not lost that, and we will not lose that; however, the other non-economic contract protections are not in place without an adopted agreement and are not retroactive. For the time being, we are playing a waiting game. It is expected that JoCER will take up the contract for a vote sometime this summer, when they can guarantee to us that it will pass. Throughout this process, the legislators on JoCER proved to be our allies, looking out for our best interests and getting a contract passed. We have every reason to believe that they will continue along this path and stand up for us as unionized grad workers. 

When the contract is ratified by the state legislature, we will receive our raises and "backpay," in addition to new contractual protections as workers. But to ensure that all of us who are due "backpay" receive it, we strongly encourage you to keep your contact information with UW up to date. They will be administering the "backpay." If you worked during the last two years when our 2007-2009 contract would have been in place and had an appointment lasting through April of this year, you are due this money, and our union will be fighting to ensure that you receive it. Having your information current with UW will guarantee that you receive what is your due as a union member. 

As a quick aside to this 2007-2009 contract business, we should mention that there have been rumors of the state government asking union workers to give back the raises negotiated in their contracts. As you have read above, we do not have a 2007-2009 contract in place. So we have not been asked to give back any raises. If we are asked to do so, this is a change in the contract, something that our rank-and-file membership must decide democratically. 

While our 2007-2009 contract situation develops, our next contract for the 2009-2011 period is proceeding, if slowly at that. Negotiations are not yet scheduled, as we and the other state employee unions are wary of the impact of the fiscal crisis on upcoming negotiations. 

Based upon the results of the membership survey and the formation of contract negotiation plans at our April General Membership Meeting, the Bargaining Team has worked throughout the summer to formulate our proposal for negotiations, tentatively scheduled to begin sometime this fall. As noted above, this is tentative because of the state budget issues, as well as because we are a relatively small unit of workers compared to many other state employee unions who tend to set the pace in negotiations on things like wages and health insurance premiums. 

However, our pay-rates are a combination of money allocated from the state as well as "market money" allocated by the UW to improve our take-home pay. We are hopeful that building a good working relationship with Chancellor Biddy Martin, as well as a shared concern between our union and the UW administration around improving grad worker pay, improving the competitiveness of the university, will lead to gains in wages, among other topics. Our contract negotiations will also include proposals for improvements in working conditions, in addition to the economic considerations. We look forward to productive negotiations into and through the fall, working toward agreement on a new contract.

As is the practice of our union, our bargaining platform and strategy is a product of the input from our rank-and-file members. So please feel free, even invited, to offer up your thoughts. As importantly, the success of our union in bargaining and otherwise is the product of membership involvement and activism. Good contracts are not won solely at the negotiating table. So if you would like to be involved in bargaining and contract negotiations, or with our organizing around bargaining and other topics, please be in touch. For matters relating to the contract, please speak with our Vice President of Bargaining, Kevin Gibbons. For other things TAA, please be in touch with our Co-Presidents, Katie Lindstrom and Peter Rickman.

posted by Webmaster

 

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