Under Attack (Day 1)

Posted on Posted in General

Dear Members,

We have been getting in a LOT of troubling information today.

Governor Walker is proposing sweeping, extremist attacks on employee rights and compensation that WILL be voted upon within a week. He is putting these changes forward in a budget repair bill that he will release tomorrow (Friday) at 10am. Here are the big things that you should know about:

  • The bill proposes to make Wisconsin a right-to-work state* and also will require unions to vote ANNUALLY to maintain their certification.
  • State employee unions could only bargain over wages. This is a big f-in deal. Imagine a world without tuition remission, health care, grievances, job security, and guaranteed workplace protections. Those are all things that are currently guaranteed in our contract and would be off the table if this bill passes.
  • Faculty and academic staff will no longer have the right the be represented by a union in collective bargaining.

There are a few other scary proposals, but the above points are the main ones that will affect the UW. The state legislature will vote on these proposals some time next week. Yeah…next week.

We have been working on this most of the day. Our best sources have sent us the draft proposal that is likely to be presented tomorrow morning @ 10am. I have attached the full text at the bottom of this e-mail. Here are articles in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin State Journal, and the Associated Press that came out today before some of this information had come in.

Lastly, we are calling an emergency General Membership Meeting (GMM) on Monday, February 14 @ 5:30pm. We are going to plan out what actions TAA members should take to stop this from going through. We will keep you informed with details.

E-mail this address (taa@taa-madison.org) if you have any questions or if you would like to be on the activist listserv.

Yours in solidarity,
Kevin Gibbons
Co-President of TAA