UW Unions Sully Themselves

The American Federation of Teachers and AFSCME Council 24 have been doing their best to sully the good name of unions on the UW-Madison campus.

First a little background. There are about 4,000 UW-Madison employees who currently are categorized as “Academic Staff.” AFT has a union, Local 223 (a.k.a. UFAS), dedicated to organizing that group. They’ve been at it since 1930, without much luck. Their running excuse has been that, since Academic Staff jobs weren’t covered by state employment law, the UW would have no legal obligation to negotiate a contract with them. So, why would people join a union that didn’t have “bargaining rights”?

All that changed this past spring when the Legislature passed a budget that included extending bargaining rights to Academic Staff. AFT members were instructed to celebrate and to contact Governor Doyle to urge him to sign the bill, even though that same budget slashed agencies, froze wages for state employees and gave those who live off of wealth a pass. But, at least Academic Staff could vote in a union with bargaining rights. Finally, Local 223 could organize.

Not so fast. Enter AFT and AFSCME.

As it turns out, a lot of those Academic Staff jobs properly should have been classified under one of the bargaining units that have long been covered by state labor law. If you’re programming a payroll system, it shouldn’t make a difference if you’re doing it for DOA or a campus. Thus a lot of the UW –Madison Academic Staff jobs should have been part of the Fiscal and Staff Services unit (AFT Local 4848’s jurisdiction) or the Administrative Support Unit (AFSCME Local 2412’s bailiwick). A few more might belong to AFSCME’s Technical Unit and some to AFT’s Science Professionals.

But, the university just chose to call these workers “Academic Staff” for all those years rather than unionized classified state employees because…well, because they could get away with it.

Now, there’s a mechanism for fixing the problem when state employees are incorrectly put into the wrong bargaining unit. A union can file for a “unit clarification” with the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission. If the WERC agrees that the jobs should be moved into a different bargaining unit, it’s done.

AFT and Council 24 leadership have known about this—that a lot of Academic Staff jobs were in the union’s jurisdiction and they could get them in the union through the unit clarification process—for years. It was back in 1992, for example, that Marty Beil went to the WERC to rip off a hundred Financial Specialists from AFT 4848’s jurisdiction. So, nobody can claim naiveté here. But none of the unions did anything about raiding the Academic Staff group…until now.

Right after the Legislature passed the law extending bargaining rights to Academic Staff, the powers-that-be in AFT and AFSCME Council 24 decided to try to rip off a big chunk of the Academic Staff jobs and get them moved into their locals through the unit clarification process. “Why?” you might ask. “Why, at all?!” And, especially, “Why NOW?!!” Just at the moment when the Academic Staff unit got bargaining rights on its own?

Well, it makes no sense from a union organizing perspective. But it all makes perfect sense within a Business Union Model. Since the various AFT and AFSCME locals involved have either “maintenance of membership” or “fair share” agreements in place, most of these newly-drafted Academic Staffers would end up automatically paying dues to the union. And, within the Business Union Model, being “organized” is literally defined as “paying dues.”

And, of course, when you go the unit clarification route, there’s no need for a messy union certification election and a campaign to convince people they should want to be in a union. Just send in the lawyers and get ‘er done.

That all still begs the question: “Why now?” Obviously, AFT and AFSCME could have run their unit clarifications years ago. Are we to believe that they suddenly and at the same time realized that thousands of Academic Staff jobs should be in their jurisdiction and decided to take action? After 80 years? And just at the very moment that Local 223 got the legal right to bargain?

The cynic might think that these unions decided to make their move now because they were worried that Local 223 might actually use their new legal status to organize Academic Staff into a new union. Maybe they thought it was “now or never.” Maybe it’s a little like the predatory instinct to pounce on fleeing prey.

Pretty much anyone who knows anything about organizing unions could have anticipated that the unit clarification maneuver would not sit well with a lot of the potential draftees. As predicted (by us, anyway), there has been a more or less organized rebellion among UW-Madison Academic Staff.

Some Academic Staff employees, including some long-time union activists and members of Local 223, just want a chance to organize their co-workers and hold an election. They want a union, but they want a union that’s democratic and demonstratively supported by its members. And, for various reasons, they don’t relish the prospects of being absorbed into existing locals.

Unfortunately, the union bureaucracies’ ham handedness has given fuel to the truly anti-union elements on campus.

All of which is too bad. Certainly Academic Staff employees would be better off with a union. Even the somewhat anemic AFT and AFSCME locals where they might end up have better wages and benefits than non-union state employees. And, certainly, any union will have better job security than non-reps.

But, just imagine what a new union of Academic Staff employees, with a smart and aggressive leadership and the support of the members, could accomplish.

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