#My uw madison series

īy February 16, the number of protesters in front of the Wisconsin State Capitol was estimated at 30,000. That same day, union members, students and private-sector citizens took part in public hearings with the senators and representatives from both parties, which lasted 17 hours some defenders of the bill expressed their position, but the majority of the participants opposed the bill. 'Kill the Bill' remained one of the main slogans of the protesters. On February 15, tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated in and around the Capitol building in Madison regarding the proposed legislation's limitations on collective bargaining for and against Walker's bill.

On Monday, February 14, the University of Wisconsin–Madison's Teaching Assistants Association distributed 'We ♥ UW: Don't Break My ♥' Valentine cards to the governor, as a means of protesting the bill's negative impacts on working conditions at the university. The protests and demonstrations began following Walker's introduction of Assembly Bill 11 to the Wisconsin State Assembly on February 14, 2011.ĭemonstrators in steadily falling snow outside of the Wisconsin Capitol building Walker stated that without the cuts thousands of state workers would have to be laid off. The bargaining changes exempted the unions of public safety officers, including police, firefighters, and state troopers. The Walker-backed bill proposed to alleviate the budget shortfall included taking away the ability of public sector unions to bargain collectively over pensions and health care and limiting pay raises of public employees to the rate of inflation, as well as ending automatic union dues collection by the state and requiring public unions to recertify annually.

#My uw madison series

In January 2011, the state legislature passed a series of bills providing additional tax cuts and deductions for businesses at 'a two-year cost of $67 million.' In early February, the Walker administration projected a budget shortfall in 2013 (Wisconsin functions on two-year budgets) of $3.6 billion and a $137 million shortfall for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011. According to David Cay Johnston, prior to Act 10, Wisconsin state employers paid 5% of employee wages into their pension as was negotiated under the principle of ' deferred compensation.' This is especially the case for teachers in many states, because the eligibility rules of their pension plans often induce them to retire in their 50s, and Medicare does not kick in until age 65. Public-sector unions may also have cover health insurance for retirees, which can have significant cost. For private-sector workers nationwide, as of 2011, the average is 10.7%. Contributions for health insurance of active employees total 38.8% of wages. Under collective-bargaining agreements, employers and unions had negotiated health insurance considerations from carrier to cost to benefits. Walker was elected as Governor in November 2010. As a candidate for governor, Walker proposed that state employees pay more toward their pensions saying it would save the state about $180 million a year. īoth Governor Walker and his opponent in the 2010 Governor's race, Tom Barrett, stated that they would not close the budget deficit by taking money from the transportation fund. Subsequently, 53 counties throughout the state passed referenda to prevent government officials from taking money from the transportation fund for use in other projects. When Jim Doyle (D-Wisconsin) was governor (2003–2010), the budget deficits that the state faced were filled three times by taking money from the transportation fund, in amounts totaling $1.257 billion. Total union membership for all employees, both public and private, had decreased substantially over the years, with total union membership in 2010 at 11.4%. This increase in public-employee unionism coincided with the granting of collective bargaining rights to public employees. Over the same time period, the percentage of private sector employees in a union shrank from 31.9% to 6.9%.

Over the past decades public sector labor unions had grown from 10.8% of public workers being represented by a union in 1960 to 36.2% in 2010. Wisconsin was the first state in the United States to provide collective bargaining rights to public employees in 1959. 4.5.6 Teacher sick-out and school closures.

4.5.5 Requests for union contract concessions.4.5 Outcomes since law became effective.4.4.2 2012 gubernatorial and senatorial recall elections.2.8.1 Union contract extension protests.