Members of the UW-Madison Teaching Assistants' Association presented two new contract proposals for the state to consider Friday.
The first involves a continuation of the zero-dollar health-care premium for TAs and would provide a 2.4 percent pay raise for TAs and a 3.4 percent pay raise for project assistants, according to a press release. The plan would also cost $300,000 less than the state's previous proposal, said Jonathon Puthoff, chair of the TAA's publicity committee.
The second proposed plan includes a 5.3 percent raise for TAs and a 6.3 percent raise for PAs but would require both groups to pay for health care, according to a press release.
The next bargaining session is today at 9 a.m. at Memorial Union, where the state will either accept or deny the proposals. The TAA will then meet today at 4 p.m. to vote on a strike if the state does not accept either offer. If the TAA votes to strike, it will picket centrally located university buildings Tuesday and Wednesday.
The possibility of picket lines outside these buildings has raised concerns among students about whether they should attend classes during the strike.
UW-Madison Provost Peter Spear said in a statement students should still plan on attending class as he expects the university to operate as normally as possible.
\We hope members of the campus community will approach this situation with a spirit of patience and flexibility,"" he said.
To further quell concerns, UW-Madison officials have created a Web site, www.news.wisc.edu/taa/, to answer questions students, parents, faculty and staff may have regarding the strike.
Should the state and the TAA fail to reach an agreement even after the potential walkout, the TAA has said it may resort to withholding grades come semester's end.
However, Spear said that all students will get their grades at the end of the semester, regardless of whether the strike continues.
""The ultimate responsibility for assigning grades to the students in their courses lies with the course instructor,"" he said.
Spear added the university plans to set up a ""task force"" through the College of Letters and Sciences to determine exactly how this will be done.
""Our goal is to be sure that students get their grades,"" he said.
