Members of the Teaching Assistants' Association and other campus unions rallied outside the Office of State Employment Relations, 345 W. Washington Ave., Monday afternoon, rejecting the state's and UW-Madison's \package"" proposal. The proposal fails to raise teaching assistants' salaries and also eliminates the no-cost health care plan now offered to them.
Boian Popunkiov, co-president of the TAA, said the state proposed a zero percent wage increase for this year and possibly a 1 percent increase for the following year. Members of the TAA said they view this as a pay cut because the average annual TA and project assistant salary of $10,000 fails to keep up with inflation and costs for living.
According to Mike Quieto, a member of the TAA, the state's proposed health care plan would eliminate the no-cost health care option for the TAA.
""We wanted to ... raise some awareness about our issues and demonstrate that we are taking this issue seriously,"" he said.
After the rally, Karen Timberlake, director of OSER, and Jim Pankratz, director of compensation and benefits for OSER, held a closed meeting with TAA members and agreed to listen to their issues, but nothing was specifically resolved according to Quieto.
The TAA has 72 hours to accept OSER's offer, which is not enough time according to Tisha Turk, a TA in the English department. Turk said she believes this is an unrealistic time frame because there are about 3,000 members in the TAA and member input and consensus is highly valued. Therefore, the TAA refuses to accept the state's proposal and will continue bargaining until their needs are met.
The state not only ignored economic proposals but non-economic ones as well, Turk said. One issue proposed by the TAA deals with ambiguous language in the contract, in which the TAA interprets some sections of the contract differently than the state and the UW System. Yet, the state does not feel a need for further clarification, Turk said.
However, OSER representatives said they are willing to consider domestic partnership health care benefits, which the TAA supports, but has never been considered in the past, Popunkiov said. However, he said this is not good enough and it divides the union.
""This is nothing but union busting,"" Popunkiov said. ""One group wants [domestic partnership] benefits and one group wants wage increases.\
