Recent News
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Call it "Arne Duncan Unplugged," an unscripted Monday afternoon exchange at QuEST between the U.S. education secretary and AFT members on the issues that matter most to education's frontline. The July 13 session began with a drum roll: AFT members' handwritten questions for the education secretary were collected in advance and placed inside an onstage sweepstakes drum. After a few turns, AFT president Randi Weingarten reached in and selected a handful at random, and Duncan took the stage to provide some answers.
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QuEST 2009 Highlights
Highlights from the recently concluded 2009 AFT QuEST conference in Washington, D.C., included AFT president Randi Weingarten's keynote address, a town hall meeting with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, a panel on community schools and remarks from U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. Daily updates from the conference, as well as video highlights, can be found on the AFT's QuEST 2009 Web site.
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UW Faculty and academic staff might get union bargaining rights, but not everyone wants them.
Unlike most state employees, faculty and academic staff working within the University of Wisconsin System don't have the right to form unions with collective bargaining powers. That all could change, however, in the coming months. |
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Economic conditions at the start of the Great Depression are unsettlingly similar to those in the months following the stock market collapse of 2008. But in the 1930s, as jobs evaporated and thousands of people struggled to survive, the Madison community resisted in ways small and large. Neighbors blocked evictions. Worker protests built momentum for the growth of organized labor, and political pressure grew to wipe out the degrading system of public aid known as "relief." |
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An analysis of the most recent 10 years of national data presents a troubling picture of disinvestment in the higher education teaching profession-notably, a reduction in the proportion of full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty, and an increased reliance on employing "contingent" faculty and instructors such as part-time faculty, full-time nontenure track faculty and graduate employees.
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Nationwide phenomenon has schools cutting costs, but some educators decry low pay, lack of benefits. |
AFT member Kim Hixson to Chair State Assembly Higher Ed Committee (January '09)
For weeks leading into the 2008 elections, UFAS members -- in coordingation with AFT from across the state -- focused efforts on supporting the re-election of AFT member and State Rep. Kim Hixson, from the Whitewater area. In November, Hixson won re-election. In December, Hixson was appointed Chair of the State Assembly's Colleges and Universities Committee -- the position previously held by State Rep. Steve Nass and former State Rep. Rob Kreibich, each of whom used their standing as Chair to block important reforms to the University system, including collective bargaining rights. UFAS officers and members look forward to collaborating more closely with Representative Hixson in 2009 and beyond.
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Who do you think can best represent the interests of the University's faculty and academic staff? Do you think that academic staff and faculty might be the people who are most capable of such a task? Well, in recent correspondence with UW System Administration, the Union has learned that the University apparently thinks that faculty and academic staff are not the best people to represent themselves. Click here to see the recent back-and-forth and make plans to join the next UFAS meeting to participate in the Union's future plans for action.
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Contrary to administrative arguments that "there is not enough money" to fund proper raises for academic staff and faculty, the experiences of those professional state employees who bargain collectively demonstrate the power that is available through collective bargaining. To read more about these facts as well as UFAS's actions to win positive change, click here to read June's UFAS e-news.
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To help explain why and how the state legislature was able to unilaterally cut the salaries that had been committed to academic staff and faculty for the 2008-09 academic (and fiscal) year, UFAS hosted a campus-wide forum that focused on June 24th in the Red Gym. To review a copy of the slides that helped inform the discussion, click here for more information.
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Through its action on May 27th, the State Legislature set in motion a plan to cut the salary increases that had been approved last year for academic staff and faculty for the 2008-09 academic year. Representatives of UFAS/AFT protested the legislature's action and specified that the cut is happening precisely because academic staff and faculty are presently denied the right to bargain collectively (since collective bargaining requires that changes to wages are negotiated rather than unilaterally imposed). Click here for the full scoop -- along with other news, including the Union's participation in the UW-Madison Chancellor search!
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All members of UFAS regularly receive monthly news digests that feature the actions of academic staff and faculty members from across the UW System. In the current edition, there is news about (1) the Fall legislative elections, (2) new national salary data for faculty, (3) model workload rules for instructional academic staff, and (4) news of successful negotiations for lecturers at Wayne State University.
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UFAS to Host Forum on Academic Staff Rights on May 13 (TUE)
On Tuesday, May 13 in Union South (TITU), UFAS will be hosting a forum discussion on the subject of academic staff rights (or lack thereof). The forum's subtitle is "Job Security, Workplace Fairness, and The Mike Epp Story." Participants in the event will have an opportunity to learn about ways in which UFAS members have worked to advance workplace rights for academic staff at UW-Madison. In addition, there will be a facilitated discussion designed to develop future action.
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If you're presently a member of United Faculty and Academic Staff (UFAS), you should have received a letter in late March that invited your participation in the upcoming UFAS elections. An electronic copy of that letter is posted here.
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State Senate Votes 21-to-12 For Collective Bargaining Rights (February '08)
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AFT Higher Education members from eight (8) campuses testify to State Senate Committee (December '07)
Faculty and academic staff members of UFAS joined with AFT Higher Education members from eight (8) campuses to testify in support of collective bargaining rights when the State Senate Committee on Agriculture and Higher Education convened at UW-Eau Claire on December 17th. The Committee, chaired by State Senator Kathleen Vinehout (pictured here), is considering Senate Bill 353, which would extend collective bargaining rights to academic staff and faculty employed across the UW System.
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UFAS wins 4-to-1 State Senate Committee Vote for Contract Rights (January '08)
On January 9th, the State Senate Agriculture and Higher Education Committee voted to adopt Senate Bill (SB) 353, which would allow faculty and academic staff the right to petition for open, democratic votes for (or against) collective bargaining. Those voting in favor of SB 353 were State Senators Kathleen Vinehout (D-Alma), Dan Kapanke (R-La Crosse), Julie Lassa (D-Stevens Pt.), and Jeff Plale (D-S. Milwaukee). The lone negative vote was cast by Sen. Sheila Harsdorf (R-River Falls). In a press release issued by the Higher Education Council of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Senator Kapanke emphasized that the right-to-vote is “neither a Democratic issue nor a Republican issue; rather, it is a simple matter of fairness."
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