It has been 18 months since the Teaching Assistants' Association walked back into classrooms following an unsuccessful and unpopular strike. Still operating under a contract negotiated in 2001, teaching assistants are scheduled to enter mediated discussions with UW officials in upcoming weeks. Given that recent talks have proven unfruitful for the TAA, we anticipate that upcoming negotiations will be highly sensitive affairs, invoking passionate pleas from union members and student supporters. However, if one state lawmaker has his way, the TAA's right to collective bargaining will soon disappear.
According to the Legislative Reference Bureau, current law \expressly guarantees the right of self?organization and collective bargaining to program, project and teaching assistants employed by the University of Wisconsin (UW) System."" State Sen. Tom Reynolds, R-West Allis, introduced SB317 Wednesday, with the ramshackle support of only two state assemblymen, aiming to eliminate these rights. Given the unlikelihood of this bill's passage, we find the proposal to be a substantial waste of state resources and taxpayer dollars.
Attempting to strip the TAA of their bargaining rights can only handicap upcoming contract negotiations by shifting the public focus from the demands of teaching assistants to their rights as a union.
Additionally, Reynold's public statements have revealed overtly malicious motives behind his proposal. He seems to think that since the TAA has never been officially reprimanded for the spring 2004 strike, it is his duty to do so. Public policy should never be a means of personal retribution.
If Reynolds is truly losing sleep over the TAA, he should take solace in the fact that it was his side that won the strike and continues to have the upper-hand in upcoming negotiations.
