They've been successful. The place really is clean, even with people sleeping there overnight.
A lot of the organization is on the TAA level. Here's a post on the TAA blog about "Teach-out Tuesday":
Membership of the Teaching Assistants’ Association voted today [Feb. 20, 2011] to call for another “teach-out” on Tuesday, to protest the reconvening of the State Assembly and Governor Scott Walker’s planned statement about his budget....
We are calling for a teach-out rather than a walk-out because we do not want learning to cease at the UW. We value education and thus we are calling for instructors to use their discretion to cancel classes, reschedule them or hold them off campus. We are calling on action from teaching assistants, research assistants, project assistants and professors.
Posts
83 comments:
When does Walker start firing these shits?
I guess a "teach out" is less morally or ethically assailable than a "sick out".
A teach-in. First topic should be budgets and financial management, second topic should be public financing.
Post pictures or no one will believe you. We can't un-see the piles of discarded signs you posted last week.
Teaching Assistant Association? They're unionized?
When I was a teaching assistant, my annual pay for this gig was graduate tuition, plus a whopping $7500 per year. I can't imagine union dues coming out of such a meager paycheck.
Or do they make several times as much money now?
I readily admit my ignorance of all such things, but wouldn't scheduling an off-campus class open the school up to liability claims if someone, say, got into a car accident with injury on their way to said "teach out"?
I wonder how many students have taken out student loans or work part time in order to go to a school where their classes are cancelled so the TA can fight a $5 copay.
@Pastafarian
The information has been posted by a TA a couple of times in other threads. I think they pay about $200 per year for dues. If they have a 33% or greater position, they get full health insurance and pay something like $175 per year. The standard stipend for a 33% TA is $9,392 per academic year. Many grad students have multiple assistantships. Here is the official information.
Or do they make several times as much money now?
The sad thing is, none of us would be surprised if the answer was "yes."
"Teach-out." Puke.
These kids sound like Peter Pan's Lost Boys. They just don't want to grow up and get real jobs.
Take a bow, Professor Althouse. The only reason it's so clean now is your pictures last week shamed them into cleaning up after themselves.
I ask again: would I, an ordinary citizen who is not part of the privileged public sector, be allowed to sleep over at the Capitol?
Well, good for them. Interesting that the Tea Party protests didn't need an "organized effort" to clean up after themselves, they just simply cleaned up after themselves.
You would think it would be the other way 'round, the ones that sanctimoniously lecture the rest of us about "environmental" issues would be the ones for which cleanliness was the order of the day.
First, it was all the hand-written signs instead of standard-issue union label signs, now the new cleanliness standard. Gee, maybe the bar has been raised on how to conduct an authentic and civil protest, by those who have been crucified of late for their "incivility"?
Funny how people's behavior changes when they know they're being watched more closely that they're used to. That old proverb about glass houses and stones really still does have some relevancy...
Madison Man and I chatted about this on a thread yesterday. My point is WTF, a union for TA's? His point is they don't pay very much for the insurance (Dues are automatically deducted) and seldom use. Still WTF
TriangleMan said...
The information has been posted by a TA a couple of times in other threads. I think they pay about $200 per year for dues. If they have a 33% or greater position, they get full health insurance and pay something like $175 per year.
Yep, that's me. Since this is now a thread about the TAA I'll repost my info from the other threads. For the entire year of 2010, I paid $170 for health care ($15.50 per month, including health, dental, chiropractic, and no copays except for ER at 60%). I paid $206 in union dues in 2010.
The TAA has been the basic organizing unit for all of the protests on campus and at the Capitol. They are sending numerous emails every day. Also, I can note that the so-called "teach-outs" have often ended up in canceled classes. Some students are contacting other TAs who ARE teaching and asking if they can attend those sections, since their TAs are not teaching.
The standard stipend for a 33% TA is $9,392 per academic year. Many grad students have multiple assistantships.
I don't think you can exceed a 50% appointment however. You couldn't back when I was an RA. At some point you're supposed to work on your degree after all
Ricpic, my son is a TA at Madison. He is not a shit. I have no idea what he makes, as he is paying for graduate school himself, and doing it without loans. His biggest perk is reduced tuition, a kind of merit scholarship. He works part time, sells some furniture (he's studying woodworking) and gets along without living high on the hog. I was a TA once too (no union.) It was not a cushy deal.
Help defend Wisconsin?
But who will defend Wisconsin from them???
Oh, and I agree with Martin Shoemaker. Lefties can sometimes be shamed into recycling and not littering, as opposed to pasting "Love Mother Gaia" stickers on the back of their cars and dumping their trash wherever.
"The whole world's watching! The whole world's watching! Pick up your litter!"
Just doesn't have the same ring that it used to.
So is a "teach-out" just a smokescreen for "we're going to say we're working when we're really not" as I suspect?
For the entire year of 2010, I paid $170 for health care ($15.50 per month, including health, dental, chiropractic, and no copays except for ER at 60%). I paid $206 in union dues in 2010.
And your yearly salary?
I don't think you can exceed a 50% appointment however. You couldn't back when I was an RA. At some point you're supposed to work on your degree after all
With some exceptions, the limit is 75%.
@garage: Yearly salary was just under $10,000. The entire compensation for TAs at 33% includes health care, salary and complete tuition remission. We just have to pay the student services fee (about $700 per academic year).
Interesting that the Tea Party protests didn't need an "organized effort" to clean up after themselves, they just simply cleaned up after themselves.
Are you saying that organizers of Tea Party prostests did not ask people to clean up after themselves? I do not think that is true.
Unusual clarity from the protesters, whose stated goals are
to protest the reconvening of the State Assembly (so, they're against the democratic process) and Governor Scott Walker’s planned statement about his budget... so they're also opposed to free speech.
Sounds about right.
Scott, re liability
I once organized a field trip for my Packaging Technology class to a label printing plant.
It was a major hassle and I have never done it since. It took about 4 weeks to set up, had to get approvals from a zillion people and so on.
Not from the printing plant, they had no problems at all. The problem was the school's liability if any of the students got injured driving to the plant or in the plant.
John Henry
@garage: Yearly salary was just under $10,000. The entire compensation for TAs at 33% includes health care, salary and complete tuition remission. We just have to pay the student services fee (about $700 per academic year)
I didn't mean to be rude asking your salary, but I'm trying to understand your posts. Are you saying your over compensated at 10k/year with benefits?
"we do not want learning to cease" but, "we are calling for instructors to use their discretion to cancel classes". Hmmm. Tricky that.
Sounds more like:
We are calling for a teach-out rather than a walk-out because we do not want to lose our great health insurance. I'm not even saying those benefits are out of line, just that the TAA shouldn't be disingenuous about their motives.
I didn't mean to be rude asking your salary, but I'm trying to understand your posts. Are you saying your over compensated at 10k/year with benefits?
I'm just providing the data. I am personally incredibly grateful to be getting the kind of compensation I do--working a part-time job will excellent full-time benefits. I don't mind having to pay extra, since I pay under 2% of my salary for those benefits to begin with. Friends of mine at other universities don't get anywhere near this kind of compensation, and even TAships themselves can be difficult to get elsewhere. Here it's almost a guarantee.
Hold firm, Gov. Walker. We're counting on you.
Cut off the money. Stop paying the striking public workers.
My daughter, at the U of Arizona, had a year long "teach out" as she was bombarded with leftist dogma in every class all year. One example: The Silent Majority of Nixon in the 60s was made up of white people who rejected the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Even Wikipedia, which the kids could not use as a reference, knows better than that. There were lots of other "facts" that weren't facts. I expect this will be similar.
Walker just has to wait them out.
This is the twitter generation. They will fold by the end of the week.
Agree with Martin. Ann shone a light on this, so the unions wised up enough to get somebody on it.
But the parents who paid good money to send their kids there are still getting screwed by people who want to play both sides of the street.
A walk-out means no money. A teach-out means another fraud-in.
"Are you saying that organizers of Tea Party prostests did not ask people to clean up after themselves? I do not think that is true."
Doesn't matter, they did it without having to first be shamed into doing so.
Complete, trashy devastation has become a signature of democratic/left-wing popular protests and gatherings, certainly in the last decade. Witness Obama's inaguration. And the first day of protests this time around, as our blog host duly noted in an earlier post.
The Tea Party has set a new standard for cleanliness at public protests and gatherings. The left now fully acknowledges this by their current actions. As I said in my initial remark, good for them. Seriously. May this trend continue.
Did I hear right on another thread that some teacher said "Scott your kid is in my class."
Is that true?
If it is Governor Walker has to take his kids out of school right away. You just know these vindictive douchenozzles will try to screw them over. He should put his kids in private schools like Obama and all the Democrats do.
You can't trust these douchenozzles.
At the same time, this lifetime right-of-center conservationist and solar energy proponent can't help himself pointing out the delicious irony of it all.
The AWOL Senator Miller was on WLS radio this morning. You can listen to his equivocating here:
http://www.wlsam.com/FlashPlayer/default.asp?SPID=17424&ID=2115641
Other than the personal well being and income of the teachers and state/city workers, what do the unions do for society? I've seen an effort by the teacher's unions to highlight their (self stated) efforts to "improve" education, but I can't see what benefit they supply to society as a whole.
I'm pretty sick of these stories of how nice the protestors are. I think they should go back and figure out how to educate their students and fill the potholes.
galdosiana,
So shame is effective against a cartel like TAA. Competition may work even better.
galdosiana has given an example of why college tuition inflation has greatly exceeded the average.
Pass a law saying public colleges cannot pay teaching assistants. No tuition reduction either.
No more TAs, no more TA union.
Make professors actually teach.
I apologize, David. I shouldn't have used that word. But surely TA's have the choice of refusing to participate in a teach-out? Those who earn their pay have my respect. Those who rob the public don't.
Trooper York said...
Did I hear right on another thread that some teacher said "Scott your kid is in my class."
Is that true?
True.
PS madawaskan has a question for you in the previous thread.
I know I speak for all in champing at the bit for your riposte.
Professor;
You and galdosiana together could write a very potent article about the TAA. Garage's questions to her are very indicative of an insular perspective on this issue. Just as with the striking teachers as a whole, I would wager the TA's (certainly with galdosiana as an exception) have little perspective on how their salary and benefits compare to the population as a whole.
Hey, we'd all love to pay under $200 a year for healthcare (and with no co-pays!) but that's just not possible.
It's no big trick to find some teacher who's humourless or self-righteous, but, by and large, they seem like decent people. If their politics are somewhat to the left of mine, they are not in the WTF range. I disagree with doctors writing fraudulent notes and teachers manipulating students, but even here we're not dealing with murdered nuns. As atrocities go, it is difficult to get bug eyed at such behavior......Apparently teachers have pulled the levers available to them and made a few thousand dollars more than they deserve. Now, the Governor is pulling the levers available to him and trying to take the money back. This is not Armageddon, nor even a darkling plain where ignorant armies clash by night. It's a civil service dispute. Get a grip......The only truly disturbing thing I have seen is your expose of the sanitation men hooting their horn in support of the strikers. When you put on the Madison Sanitation Dept. uniform, you're supposed to stand a little prouder and walk a little taller. It sickens me to see this uniform and the brave men who have worn it so disgraced.
@PaulV: The tuition point is a valid one, and it is something that most undergrads here don't seem to realize.
@Bob: The problem with getting profs to teach all classes at a university the size of this one is that it would cost a TON more money if we were still going to keep the class sizes relatively decent in discussion sections. There is, however, currently an "Undergrad Initiative" program on campus that is designed to make the profs teach more undergrad classes. However, the negative effect of this initiative is that it has reduced the kinds of classes that TAs are eligible to teach, thus forcing a backlog of TAs in many departments on the lower level classes. When you guarantee or fellowship to every grad student entering the program, this is a problem...
Hey, speaking of petty tyrants, why did Kadaffi never promote himself beyond colonel? Seriously, he could have made general by now.
We are all Benghazians now, right? Well, except for those of us who aren't, of course.
WV: guitriv - what Woody played.
I was a TA at UW-Madison when the union was voted in. I voted against it, by the way. They got it passed by exempting anybody voting from having to pay dues.
The president of the union at the time was a chemist and he was not very popular amongst the Chemistry TAs as the union's main affect on us was to keep our department from paying us more than other campus TAs. I guess the union did let first years get a bonus of a few thousand dollars, but my impression is they eventually got that killed too.
Oh, and the requirements of taking diversity training in order to maintain the pay bump of a senior TA.
It's possible that today's TAs have actually been conned into thinking the union is for their benefit. Poor saps.
When I was a teaching assistant, my annual pay for this gig was graduate tuition, plus a whopping $7500 per year. I can't imagine union dues coming out of such a meager paycheck.
But it's really not a meager paycheck. They're getting a tuition waiver worth, say $15,000 plus health insurance plus $9K -- for a 33% position (meaning 13 hours a week).
I was a grad student for several years with a teaching assistant position. I thought it was a great deal and hated having to pay dues to the militant lefty TA union at my school.
"Scott, your kid is in my class."
Not only did a teacher say that but she (I think her name is Gustaffson) went on to say that "I inspire him."
These creatures defeat satire.
The thing that really amazes about that teacher claiming Gov Walker's kid is in his class is...how can you be so monumentally stupid to think that was going to go over anything but poorly?
Pass a law saying public colleges cannot pay teaching assistants. No tuition reduction either.
No more TAs, no more TA union.
Make professors actually teach.
Many of the professors I know spend a lot of their time doing research and writing proposals to fund that research. UW-Madison brings in 100s of millions a year in grants. It's one of the top 5 institutions for doing that and it's very successful at getting results out into the public domain. TAs help with their class load so they can do this entrepreneurial activity. Similar things happen at all universities.
. TAs help with their class load so they can do this entrepreneurial activity.
Don't TA's also help with the research leg-work? Or is that just grad student?
I'm glad they are clean, full of passion and idealism, and successfully sticking it to The Man. Groovy songs and drums too.
However, this is lipstick on a pig, to coin a cliche. Their basic demands are that they want taxpayers to continue forking out to insulate union members from the market forces and recessions and deficits that have hurt those same taxpayers. Once the young people who side with them in the poll figure out who will pay this bill, their support may disappear.
Not exactly Selma.
Don't TA's also help with the research leg-work? Or is that just grad student?
There are TAs, PAs, and RAs (project and research assistants). They are all grad students who are getting compensated to do work related to their field of study. The faculty benefit from having assistance with teaching and research from bright students. The students benefit by gaining experience in teaching and research in their chosen field. It is an arrangement that is very similar to a traditional apprenticeship.
@Triangle Man, the undergrads getting "taught" by a TA may not be getting such a good deal, however. Maybe I should say their parents.
It's far easier to attract potentially excellent graduate students if they know there is an assistantship here waiting for them. In my former department, those were almost always RAs. Only a few people subsisted on TA-ships because they were always being cut, and the number of classes needed to get to 33% -- for tuition remission -- gradually increased during the 80s and early 90s.
I had to pay tuition while as grad student -- is that still the case? It was taken out of my paycheck. Having a half-time appointment generally meant that you got to pay in-state rather than out-of-state. And even if you lived here and had a house here and had a wife who worked here, you couldn't get in-state tuition if you came here to go to school.
@SteveR: Depends on the quality of instruction that comes from the Professor. Some of them are lousy and only a decent TA keeps things going.
"100s of millions a year in grants."
The students receive no benefits from these grants. They just get the dubious pleasure of being taught by 24 year old TAs.
I believe tuition at Wisconsin has gone up 5.5% each of the last three years. (The press release said it was "modest".) And the inflation rate was what?
So TAs are required to be in a union in order to do their work and get their tuition.
Their union, the TAA, is associated with the AFL-CIO.
The AFL-CIO donates heavily to Democratic politicians.
Now. How do we end up with such a Democrat-heavy academia?
MM, true some are good enough but in my experience as an undergrad, some were just crappy, teaching basic classes that could impact the foundation for further study. As a grad student, I knew some TAs who were not very serious about the task.
Are there standards, training, evaluations?
I believe tuition at Wisconsin has gone up 5.5% each of the last three years. (The press release said it was "modest".) And the inflation rate was what?
The increases in tuition are linked to a decrease in the subsidy provided to students. Over the same time period faculty and staff salaries have decreased.
Bob for OH: I ran the numbers quickly at the start of this whole kerfuffle and came up with UW tuition increasing at approximate 4x the rate of inflation since 1995. (I just used that start year because I recently saw an article with UW tuition costs for it.)
Probably an inflationary combination of increasing personnel costs and the availability of cheap money from Federal student loans.
And you're right Triangle, a decrease in general fund subsidy would help account for it as well.
Just as another data point, the TA positions at the University of Arkansas generally pay about $12k for a 50% appointment, with tuition reimbursement for 2 classes per semester and 1 during the summer term. For in-state tuition, that adds about $6k per year. Health insurance is provided by paying 60% of the student insurance fee, leaving the TA with about $400 per year.
The insurance itself is OK, though it's capped at $100k total so if you get really sick, you're screwed. For the relatively young and healthy population it covers, the insurance company is probably getting the better end of the deal.
I'm not sure if TA's in different departments earn different amounts, but for research assistants, I earned $18k/yr, in the Computer Science dept., while an RA I know in the Education dept. only makes $12k.
So, it sounds like the salary negotiated by the TAA isn't much different and in some cases may be lower, but the fringe is substantially better. That's roughly in line with what the teachers have negotiated, where the fringe is worth nearly as much as the salary. Which explains why Walker is targeting the collective bargaining on the benefits, and leaving the wages.
Oh- one thing about the WI TAA insurance. Just kind of a data point.
Here in CA, students at the UCs are required to have insurance that meets certain levels. If you can't waiver out, you have to pay about $400/quarter to get the UC-funded insurance.
Here's the rub. Due to ever-increasing insurance costs, our family's employer changed policies (at additional out of pocket cost to us!) that do not meet the UC's requirements.
So next year, we won't be able to waiver our student out, even though he will be covered by our insurance. So he will be doubly insured, and we will be paying.
This is the kind of burden government and universities are putting on families. So yeah, TAAs get a little less sympathy because they don't want to contribute a little more in WI.
The increases in tuition are linked to a decrease in the subsidy provided to students.
That's misleading to the point of being dishonest. The relative amount of subsidy decreased, simply because tuition has risen so quickly. The very article you cite contains the following quote:
"The cost of operating 26 campuses has gone up, and the state contribution has been relatively flat," said David Giroux, spokesman for the UW System.
Liberals are PIGS as usual. BTW, Sgt Shulz on PMSNBC got LIVID when he heard that conservatives referred to the union activists as PIGS. He almost had a stroke on air.
Don't TA's also help with the research leg-work? Or is that just grad student?
Typically TAs and RAs are 50% appointments, meaning that it's the "outside job" that allows a student to pay the rent while working on their dissertation research. For RAs, the outside job is often indistinguishable from the dissertation research. RAs are usually paid off of grant funds.
Hey, we'd all love to pay under $200 a year for healthcare (and with no co-pays!) but that's just not possible.
The pool of TAs is disproportionately young and healthy.
I was a grad student at UW just after the TAA had had some of its attempts to strike. I wasn't a member, but I had friends in Math who were pretty active. As I recall, the TAA was a mix of people who were serious about improving conditions for TAs and people who were playing revolutionary Marxist. One of the former types once joked that his platform in running for a TAA leadership position should be "A chicken in every pot and an ice-axe in every Trot".
I also remember that the TAA rhetoric about solidarity with the workers didn't keep unionized blue collar people from crossing their picket lines regularly.
I wonder how much these things have changed.
Glad I have news for you TA ships are not a guarantee and some will be cut as L&S has asked each department to cut 10% from the budget, and guess who is going to be cut. Further we actually we loose some of the best candidates to the Ivies because they offer so much more: full scholarships plus expense for five years etc. which the state colleges can not match. On the other hand our TAs gain valuable teaching experience in return for their $10,000 per year.
TA ships are not a guarantee and some will be cut as L&S has asked each department to cut 10% from the budget
True, and this is after a decades-long decline in TA support from the state (TA money is from the General Fund). The Dept I'm a graduate of is thinking of ditching the University phones to save money instead of cutting TA positions again.
That's misleading to the point of being dishonest. The relative amount of subsidy decreased, simply because tuition has risen so quickly. The very article you cite contains the following quote:
You have no call to get snippy with me.
We were talking about UW Madison, not the system as a whole. What does the comparison of recent tuition increases versus the PPI or CPI lead you to conclude? We are talking about a State University with some of the lowest tuition rates among its peers that had a long history of strongly subsidizing tuition. Do you think tuition went up in lock step with inflation when inflation was high?
I don't know, I don't have that data. I am simply pointing out that it is misleading to imply, as I think you did, that the sole or primary reason for recent tuition increases was a absolute decrease in subsidization.
Triangle. Yes, tuition has always gone up faster than inflation, high or low. Much higher
Well wait one goddamn minute. If TAs are going to be cut then that can only mean that professors will have to teach. I realize that this is bad for the profs but is it a bug or a feature for the students? Not that we give a shit about them, but still.
Tuition has gone up as more money became available to pay for it, specifically government grants and especially student loans. It has nothing to do with the CPI. This is a longer trend that was seen in a short time frame with the housing market. There will likely be a bubble bursting in higher ed as well.
As with mortgages, there are plenty of degreed folks with huge student loan debt and without a job that justifies it. I wonder who'll end up paying them.
Well, trying to keep things clean from a leftard point of view is really pointless. They are generally filthy, dirty, drechs. Hey, how about asking for them to be articulate?
The TAA has just sent out this "Outreach to Undergrads". TAs are supposed to use this to explain the situation to their students.
http://taa-madison.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Outreach-to-Undergrads.pdf
Grad assistants in my department get a stipend of 10-12K per academic year and a 3 course per semester tuition waiver. Theyy are required to work 20 hours per week doing administrative work or research support; teaching one class counts as 10 hours per week. In the mid-'90s, they unionized and affiliated with the Communication Workers of America. That's how they got health insurance.
In late January, an email was sent to some faculty (not me) encouraging them to "walk out and teach in." I learned about it a couple days later when the faculty union emailed us to tell us that participating might violate the Taylor Law, and telling the organizers to cease and desist. At about the same time on campus, posters when up advertising the protest, sponsored by the Student Crisis Committee. There was no mention of faculty on the poster.
I would not have participated, even if the union had not copied me on the cease and desist letter. It isn't in my nature. I would never withhold my contracted services. I expect students to attend class. So I would not encourage them to walk out, and I would not excuse them from class.
I very likely would have participated when I was a student, but only if I was free at the specified time. I would have been very motivated and excited, maybe even would have made signs and definitely worn a button. I'd have listened to the speakers and shouted the slogans. I would never have missed class to participate, however.
I saw a student in one of my classes wearing a protest button, and asked her how many people were there, etc. I also read about it in the news afterwards. A few hundred students attended, including some graduate students. They may be TA's that dismissed class but if so, that wasn't reported. I don't believe any regular faculty were there.
I understand how a rally may be 'clean' or not.
I understand how a rally may be 'peaceful' or not.
But I don't understand how a rally may be 'democratic' or not. What does that even mean?
(I've just emailed my question to the TTA. I'll post any replies I get.)
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