This past week I wrote a
post about WEAC having to layoff a sizable chunk of employees. The news public employee union news out of Wisconsin is not getting much better. On
Friday,
The 3,000-member teaching assistants union at UW-Madison has voted narrowly against seeking official state certification under a controversial new law that prohibits most collective bargaining for most public sector employees.
The law that Governor Walker (and I use the term governor loosely as he is not a leader in any sense of the word) signed requires public employee unions to hold a yearly vote in order to be certified by the state. If an employee does not vote, that vote is considered a "No" vote. Other than this being a giant hassle, waste of time and money, it is one of "Walker's tools" to kill off labor unions.
"Investing resources in this process would divert resources from other forms of activism," said Adrienne Pagac, co-president of the Teaching Assistants' Association.
[...]
The certification process is "illegitimate" and designed to sap union resources, Pagac said.
Under normal circumstances, a union only certifies once and that is when the union is formed. The certification process also requires that 51 percent of the members vote in favor of the certification. Not just a majority of those voting, it must be 51 percent of members where a non-vote counts as a no. Under these rules we would never have any elected officials. The Republicans talk a big game of no government interference, but this surely proves the hypocrisy of that stance, as among other things, this is unnecessary government interference in union business. If the union is already certified it should not have to re-certify. If the members at some point decide they want to dissolve the union the have the option to hold that vote. Walker and his cronies are forcing the issue on a yearly basis.
While the union will not be certified they claim they will still fight for the rights of members. I am not sure how they will be able to fight when no one will listen to them. As it stands now only one in ten members have signed up to pay union dues of between $12 and $28 a month. That number could go up within the coming weeks as graduate students return to campus; however, there is no way to predict who or how many will or will not pay.
Disclaimer—I am a graduate student in the University of Wisconsin System. Last year I was a Graduate Assistant at UW-Stout, and non-union; however, I received roughly the same benefits as my union counterparts. I did not make a lot of money doing it, $800 a month, and had I chosen to opt into the healthcare plan it would have been around $15 a month. This year the same plan is going up to $42 a month.
10:35 AM PT: Just a quick update to clarify a point...The campus I attend does not have the option for union membership for Graduate and Teaching Assistants. That is only available at the UW-Madison campus, I attend the UW-Stout Campus.