From our colleagues at Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA-Madison):
For the past two decades, the University of Wisconsin System has been under attack: budget cuts combined with increased inflationary pressures have forced our faculty, staff, and students to do much more with much less.
In this context many of our locals—including Green Bay, Oshkosh, Whitewater, River Falls, and the Teaching Assistants’ Association at Madison—have asked our chancellors to engage in a process called “meet and confer” to exchange ideas about making our workplaces better and ensuring our students have the resources they need to be successful.
Thus, the leadership of AFT-Wisconsin asks you to sign this letter calling on the Board of Regents, the UW system, and campus chancellors’ offices to:
- Respect the rights of faculty and staff to exercise their collective voice through their union
- Agree to legal meet and confer relationships with the elected leadership of faculty and staff AFT-Wisconsin chapters when they ask administration for it and engage in good faith efforts to exchange ideas about improving campus working conditions and student learning conditions
- Refrain from engaging in efforts to intimidate faculty and staff from joining and getting involved with their faculty and staff union
- Cease and desist efforts to eliminate academic programs, lay off faculty and staff, or reduce academic options for students without the explicit support of faculty and staff on those campuses