Stand up, UW! Days of Action, Tuesday and Wednesday

What follows is one of many calls to action being issued right now on the University of Wisconsin – Madison campus. I'm passing it on by request.

You have seen the news. We as a university community are under attack on every front that matters, such as:

• After years of no raises, we now face an instant pay cut close to double digits, maybe higher.
• The UW Faculty Senate just voted for core principles to guide negotiations between the State and UW. One of those, the right to collective bargaining, would now be violated.

But that’s the tip of an iceberg. Here’s an aspect of the budget plan you may not have considered: By stripping union employees of the right to bargain for anything beyond salary, the budget plan could very easily nullify the tuition remission agreement in the Teaching Assistants Association contract with the potential to disrupt graduate student workers and grant work.

Worse, you know that the justifications for these attacks are not true: The claim that public employees as overpaid is directly at odds with available data and analysis showing that we’re rewarded worse than comparable private sector employees.

We need to act. A broad coalition of groups is organizing days or action this week at the Capitol:

11:00 a.m. Tuesday, and Wednesday, Feb. 15-16

A strong show of public support is our first step.

Please come and please encourage others to come. The future of our University may hang in the balance.

Update, 12:05: Just got the University guidelines on holding classes off-campus, since there's been a call to hold classes at the Capitol on Tuesday and Wednesday. See here.