TAA Members Reject Governor Walker's Recertification Vote, Vow to Continue Fight to Restore Collective Bargaining Rights in State

Graduate assistants at the University of Wisconsin-Madison voted Thursday to not seek recertification for their labor union, the Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA), given the effective curtailment of collective bargaining rights under Gov. Scott Walker’s union-busting legislation that went into effect in June.

“No law, including one that grants an organization to the right to collectively bargain, makes us a union. Unions existed prior to the implementation of such laws and unions will remain even though Scott Walker and Republican legislators have taken our rights from us,” said Adrienne Pagac, co-president of the TAA, which advocates for 3,000 teaching assistants and project assistants on campus. “The university relies on us to keep its commitment to teaching, research, and service. We will keep fighting for our shared interests through the TAA so that we can continue to contribute to the university’s service to this state.”

Members of the Teaching Assistants’ Association have chosen to decline to participate in a recertification procedure it sees as illegitimate and purposefully constructed to focus all union energies and resources towards election procedures and away from its responsibilities of graduate employee representation. Instead, graduate student workers will continue to build voluntary membership in their union and collaborate with other community and labor groups to restore union rights and safeguard the voices of Wisconsin workers.

“We built a huge amount of solidarity among our members during the spring. We are launching a fall membership campaign to continue that momentum,” said Jason Orne, graduate student in sociology and Vice-President of Organizing. “We plan to renew 800 members during this blitz and show that we are stronger together than we are separately.”

Wisconsin Act 10 strips public employee unions of their right to collectively bargain over all working conditions, except for wages, where any increases could not exceed the cost of inflation. In addition, the law applies a requirement that 51% of all members of the bargaining unit would need to vote “yes” in an election, surpassing the democratic standard of 50% plus one of those who choose to participate in an election as the required threshold to win recognition. Even Scott Walker himself would not have been elected by the Wisconsin Act 10 requirement. He was elected by votes from only 25.8% Wisconsin’s eligible voters (Isthmus, July 28, 2011).

The Teaching Assistants’ Association is the world’s oldest teaching assistant union. It negotiated the first ever contract between a university and its graduate employees. Since then, the TAA has won and protected tuition remission, health care coverage, and a cap on work hours for teaching assistants and project assistants. The TAA has set an example of progressive labor representation for universities across the country, allowing the UW-Madison to recruit some of the nation’s top graduate students.  In part because of its excellence in graduate education and research, in 2010 UW-Madison ranked among the top 20 universities in the world, according to the prestigious Shanghai Jiao Tong rankings.

The membership drive kicks-off with a Campus Solidarity Day on August 25th.

August 18, 2011