Following is a copy of a Letter-to-the-Editor sent by Chancellor Richard H. Wells to the Oshkosh Northwestern

 

 

 

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Dear Editor:

A Dec . 22 article in the Oshkosh Northwestern reported that I had taken a position on a Senate bill that would give UW System faculty and academic staff the right to organize unions.

While the article was largely accurate, I have not taken a position on that legislation.

This is a serious public policy issue. Senate Bill 452 is a lengthy and complicated piece of legislation, and it should be carefully analyzed and debated before anyone takes a position on it.

As the article correctly reported, I strongly believe, in principle, that faculty and academic staff should be able to make a decision on whether or not they want to be collectively represented. But that is only one of the questions posed by this legislation.

One of the state’s most precious resources, the UW System enriches our lives and strengthens the state’s economy. Since its beginning, it has relied on an interactive, shared governance process in which faculty and academic staff help provide leadership and continuity to its academic purpose and mission. To create a new option for collective bargaining could change that.

There are several very important public policy questions associated with allowing faculty and academic staff to bargain over wages, hours and conditions of employment. The key question is how the campus-by-campus bargaining model provided by Senate Bill 452 would work in conjunction with our long-standing, and successful, commitment to shared governance.

Sincerely,
University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Chancellor Richard H. Wells

Background facts about SB 452

+ Senate Bill (SB) 452 extends the "right-to-decide" collective bargaining to faculty and academic staff employed throughout the University of Wisconsin (UW) System. The legislation does not create new bargaining units for any state employees; rather, it extends the same democratic rights presently available to other public- and private-sector employees to UW academic staff and faculty.

+ SB 452 extends the right-to-decide collective bargaining to faculty and academic staff--as two separate groups--on each campus. For example, if faculty at one, three, or seven of the comprehensive campuses chose collective-bargaining, the academic staff at those campuses would not be required to also choose collective-bargaining.

+ As of today, 29 states extend collective-bargaining rights to faculty and academic staff employed at two-year and four-year public higher education institutions. Four states, including Wisconsin, presently extend such rights only to those working at two-year institutions (e.g., the Wisconsin Technical College System).

+ More than 250,000 university and college faculty and professional staff--employed on more than 1,100 campuses--are union members. Wayne State University, Western Michigan University, and Eastern Illinois University are among the public institutions where faculty and professional staff have chosen to be represented through collective bargaining.

+ During the one-year period spanning March 2001 and March 2002, Faculty Senates at 14 of the 15 UW campuses approved resolutions requesting that the Legislature extend collective bargaining rights to UW faculty and academic staff. While UW-Madison's Faculty Senate did not approve such a resolution during the 2001-02 period, SB 452 does meet each of the concerns that have been raised in the past by Madison representatives. A listing of faculty senates and the dates they approved resolutions is appended here: