Although state budget details were worked out in secret, it's no secret many state and University of Wisconsin employees remain boiling mad at Gov. Jim Doyle for ordering 16 unpaid days off over the next two years to help close the $6.6 billion budget gap that keeps on growing. And while the hit to the pocketbook hurts -- especially for those toiling in low-wage jobs -- much of the frustration comes from staffers whose pay doesn't come out of Wisconsin tax coffers. Doyle has said that all 69,000 state employees must take furloughs regardless of who funds their salary...But that argument doesn't cut it with Laura Brown, a senior scientist at the UW Medical School. Brown notes that federal grants pay the salaries and benefits of many UW staffers. Other researchers have private grants from individuals or foundations...
Thousands of currently unrepresented academic staffers at University of Wisconsin campuses could be assigned into existing unions - rather than having the chance to vote - under a provision included in the state budget, state officials say. The 2009-'11 budget plan, awaiting a final agreement in Madison, would give UW faculty and academic staff the right to collectively bargain, meaning faculty and staff could vote to form bargaining units at different campuses. But part of the language added by state Rep. Cory Mason (D-Racine), a former union lobbyist, and state Sen. Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay), gives the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission the express authority to assign some academic staff employees to appropriate unions without a vote...
UW System graduate students who are research assistants would have the right to form unions under versions of the budget passed by the state Senate and Assembly. UW Faculty and staff would also have collective bargaining rights under those bills. But unlike faculty and staff, unionizing rights for graduate student research assistants were not in earlier versions of the budget...
