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TAA History

The First Fourty Years... And Beyond

1966-1979: The First TA Union in the World

The Teaching Assistants' Association was born in the spring of 1966 as an organization dedicated to improving the working conditions of graduate assistants and undergraduate education at the UW-Madison. Drawing its membership largely from the antiwar and student movements of the day, from the outset the TAA was a progressive voice in the university community.

In 1969, a legislative proposal to deny out-of-state tuition remission to graduate assistants provided the spark that brought a majority of TAs into the TAA. Discovering the power of collective action, TAs voted to strike if the bill passed. Although the bill was quickly withdrawn, TAs had decided that a formally recognized union with bargaining rights was the best way to protect TAs' working conditions and improve educational quality. TAs proposed a new kind of union based on the increasing importance of the university and mental labor to society.

Since Wisconsin had no laws addressing collective bargaining between the UW and its graduate employees, the TAA had to apply strong pressure on the UW to enter a Structure Agreement. This Structure Agreement provided the legal basis for the first collective bargaining unit of graduate employees in the United States. After the TAA won a representation election by an overwhelming margin, the TAA and the UW sat down to bargain what would become the first contract between a university and its graduate assistants.

Bargaining began in May 1969. Yet by March 1970, there was still no agreement because the UW had refused to move on issues critical to graduate assistants. As a result, the TAA went on strike. Four weeks later, TAs won most of their demands-with the substantial exception of gaining a voice in university educational reform. But for the first time, teaching assistants had won the security of 3- to 4-year support guarantees, an effective grievance procedure, workload limitations, fair discipline and discharge procedures, class-size limits, a democratic evaluation process, and health insurance for TAs, PAs, and RAs.

The TAA negotiated four more contracts with the UW. The union made additional gains, such as a minimum 33% appointment that guaranteed out-of-state tuition remission and insurance benefits, the HMO option for health insurance, and posting of hiring criteria. On the other hand, the UW was able to extract several concessions. (For a first-person narrative of this period of TAA history, see Daniel Czitrom's essay in Will Teach for Food by Cary Nelson (Ed.), 1997).

To strengthen its position, the TAA affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers (AFL-CIO) in 1974. The TAA assumed a prominent role in the state's progressive labor movement, with members serving as vice presidents of the Wisconsin Federation of Teachers. In 1993, TAA member David Newby was elected president of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO-a position he still holds today.

1979-1985: The Administration Strikes Back

Well before the fifth contract between the TAA and the UW expired in August 1979, the University had grown increasingly impatient with the collective bargaining process, ignoring arbitrators' awards in grievance cases and flouting court decisions ordering it to abide by the terms of the contract. When bargaining began for a new contract in 1979, the UW insisted on across-the-board concessions. It wanted some TAs to work without being paid on the pretext that they were not really working, but fulfilling degree requirements. The UW did not want to post hiring criteria for TAs. Administrators demanded the sole power to decide which grievances could be taken to binding arbitration. Once again, the TAA was faced with the difficult choice-to strike or to work without a contract.

For seven months, the union worked without a contract. Finally, in March 1980, TAs voted to strike. At issue was the union's very existence and the right of graduate assistants to have a say in determining their working conditions. Union members and supporters struck for five weeks. Although the TAA accepted a mediator's proposal to end the strike, the UW refused to compromise. In May, just before the end of classes, the TAA returned to work without a contract. Three months later, Chancellor Irving Shain announced that he was terminating the Structure Agreement, which had provided the legal framework for ten years of bargaining. The TAA sued, but the court ruled that the UW had the right to pull out of the agreement. Ten years of bargaining were over.

While in the short term it seemed that the TAA's second strike had failed, in the end it galvanized TAA members to address the underlying weakness in their position: the lack of legal bargaining rights. A legislation committee was created to coordinate an intensive outreach, lobbying, and research effort designed to secure passage of a bargaining rights bill. With the support of unionists from across Wisconsin, the TAA accomplished what many had considered impossible: in October 1985, the bill passed, despite intense opposition from the university. Once again, TAs had the opportunity to bargain about their conditions of employment-but this time, the university had a legal obligation to sit at the table and bargain in good faith. And, for the first time, PAs had the right to choose union representation. The foundations of a new beginning were laid.

1985-1997: Starting Over, Making Historic Gains

To fulfill the promise of new bargaining rights, TAs and PAs had to again vote on union representation. The choice was simple: endorse the TAA as the bargaining agent or have no union at all. Despite the university's unprecedented anti-union campaign, TAs and PAs demonstrated that the TAA was their union: nearly 1,000 "yes" votes were cast in the representation election in the spring of 1987.

The next big step to ensure long-term strength and viability of the TAA was a Maintenance of Membership (MoM) or "Fair Share" election. After an intensive organizing effort in 1990, TAs and PAs voted to institute MoM fees-thereafter, all new members of the bargaining unit were required to pay their "Fair Share" to cover bargaining, grievance, and other expenses that benefit all unit members.

In the early 1990s, health-care benefits for domestic partners began to be a key issue for the TAA. The struggle led to the inclusion of a negotiating note in the 1993-1995 contract endorsing the principle of extending health care benefits to domestic partners. But late in 1993, Republican lawmakers forced the TAA to withdraw the negotiating note as a condition of ratification. In exchange, the State/UW agreed to anti-discrimination language.

The TAA also continued to act on issues not directly addressed in the contract. During the summer of 1994, the TAA and the International Students Committee initiated a campaign against a new university policy requiring all international students to purchase insurance to cover medical evacuation and repatriation. The administration misrepresented the policy as being federally required of all international students. TAA researchers discovered the "coffin tax" was actually not mandated for students with F-1 visas-the majority of international students at the university. Due to TAA-led opposition, the administration revoked the policy in September 1994.

In 1997, after a multifaceted campaign that spanned several years, the TAA won a full tuition waiver. Representative Joe Wineke introduced a state budget amendment extending the waiver to grad students; it succeeded after hundreds of TAA members directly lobbied state legislators, shouted at large rallies, joined undergrads and others in a postcard campaign, and occupied Bascom Hall with a "work-in" during finals week. Thanks to the collective action taken by TAA members and regular attention from local media, the amendment survived the budget committee process, the floor vote, and a potential veto by the governor.

1998-2003: The Attack on Collective Bargaining Begins

In the late nineties, however, serious disturbances in the state's collective bargaining process began to appear. As part of its overall plan to defund public higher education and the public sector itself in favor of private spending, the Wisconsin state legislature and governor's office began to take a more assertive and indeed aggressive role at the bargaining table, complicating and sometimes even halting negotiations.

In 1999, after months at the table with little progress, the TAA entered into mediation with the State/UW, a first in over 10 years. Members launched a "Mediation Watch" to signal their vigilance. TAA members rallied to "close the gap!" between PA and TA pay, and fought against proposed pay cuts for some members and a raise that lagged behind inflation. After a full year of intensive member activism, impressive gains were achieved in the new contract, signed March 2000. The new agreement included paid teacher training, better overwork protection, movement toward TA/PA pay equity, and across-the-board raises.

While the gains of the 1999-2001 contract were indeed impressive, the struggles necessary to achieve them signaled the state's growing hostility toward collective bargaining with its workers. Despite the fact that the State's negotiating team approved a new contract in February 2002, the state legislature determined to hold the bargaining process hostage. The TAA contract, along with the contracts of thousands of other Wisconsin public employees, was locked up in an obscure committee of the State Legislature. In a move to gain political points with the public, Republican members of the committee refused to allow the contracts onto the floor for a vote, claiming that public employees were "responsible" for the State's financial woes-despite the fact that money had already been budgeted to pay for the contracts. After months of lobbying and public protest by TAA members and other unionists across the state, the logjam was finally broken. This victory came with a warning from key Republicans in the legislature, however: public employees (including grad assistants), they said, would have to pay for health insurance in the next round.

2003-2006: Bargaining in Slow Motion

Because of the Legislature's interference, the 2001-2003 contract was not ratified until May 2003, meaning it was right back to the bargaining table in Fall 2003. The TAA negotiated with the State/UW for the entire semester, offering significant concessions in order to preserve an affordable health insurance plan. But, under political pressure from the governor's office and members of the Legislature, the State/UW team refused to budge on health insurance, insisting that TAs and PAs open the door to spiraling premium costs while simultaneously taking an effective pay cut.

Thus two primary issues began to emerge from negotiations. First, members felt that the State was violating a tacit agreement that had held for almost 20 years: state workers (including TAs and PAs) would take lower pay increases in exchange for good benefits (like $0 health insurance premiums). The second issue was the State's simple unwillingness to bargain. Every time the TAA had put forth another compromise package, the State would simply say "no" and essentially (once even literally) offer its old package. Members recognized that this wasn't bargaining in good faith: the State wasn't compromising.

So at the beginning of the Spring 2004 semester, given the complete stalemate at the bargaining table, for the first time in almost 25 years TAA members began considering a strike. After substantial interim attempts to make bargaining work, in early April of 2004 over 71% of eligible members voted "yes" in favor of a strike if negotiations produced no results by April 27th. On the evening of April 26, with over 500 TAA members in attendance and no new progress at the table, a General Membership Meeting voted to enact the planned and authorized strike. On April 27 & 28, over 500 members walked the picket lines. A former TAA member, who participated in the TAA's 1980 strike, came out to walk the picket lines and said that the Spring 2004 walk-out was bigger and louder than the 1980 strike. Members struck over 40 departments in 18 buildings, with high levels of respect for the picket lines on both days from TAA members, faculty, and undergraduate students.

Shortly thereafter, the State declared an "impasse" in bargaining and refused to schedule more bargaining sessions all throughout the summer and fall. Nearly ten months later, in March of 2005, the State finally agreed to a session. At this session, however, the State reached a new low in bargaining tactics: it actually withdrew $1 million from its previous offer. By the end of the Spring semester, with relatively few legal options left to compel the State to bargain, the TAA filed an Unfair Labor Practice charging the State with "regressive bargaining," bargaining that moves away from reaching an agreement. Faced with this legal threat, the State finally agreed to discuss both the 2003-2005 and 2005-2007 contracts through mediation.

Once again, though, summer intervened, and mediation didn't happen until November. Once underway, though, mediation produced results. Over the course of two sessions on November 1 and 15, the TAA finally compelled the State to offer a substantial wage increase in exchange for TAA members contributing to health care premia. When all was said and done-after perhaps the most contentious round of bargaining since 1980, and in the midst of a resolutely anti-union political environment-the State had got its foot in the door to expanding health care premium payments in the future, while TAA members got a host of other benefits, and an average raise of over 11% for 2003-2007.

2007 and Beyond: What's Next?

One side-effect of state attacks on the public sector is the UW administration's ill-conceived plan to solve its financial problems (related to graduate employee tuition remission) by making it much more expensive for departments to hire PAs and RAs: departments are now paying $8000 per year for each PA or RA they hire, with guaranteed increases in the coming years as tuition rises. This move has resulted in the loss of 16% of PA jobs already (and an undetermined amount of RA-ships too), and is expected to result in even more job losses this year. It's bad not only for grad employees, but for the UW's research, and especially for departments that rely on PA-ships for graduate student support. So TAA members, along with faculty and other interested organizations, have joined together to fight this plan as part of the Coalition for Affordable Public Education (CAPE). CAPE is lobbying administrators and the state legislature for ways to solve this problem, and holds meetings weekly. To find out more and get involved, call the TAA office at 256-4375.

Bargaining for the 2007-2009 contract will begin this Fall as well. Last spring, members came up with a whole set of issues-from greater pay, to subsidized segregated fees and health care, to a wider array of certified diversity trainings-for the Bargaining Team to pursue in negotiations with the state of Wisconsin and UW administration. All bargaining sessions are open to TAA members for observation; just bring your own work (knitting has been particularly popular lately) and watch! Caucuses-times when both sides break for internal discussion-provide an opportunity (outside of formal union meetings) for members to ask questions and offer their opinions. Spots are still open on the Bargaining Team as well, so if you have an interest in helping with research or taking on management itself, call the TAA office at 256-4375 to get involved today!