GRADUATE STUDENT UNIONISM: THE TEACHING ASSISTANTS ASSOCIATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN - MADISON, 1970-1980

In 1970 the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Teaching Assistants Association (TAA) negotiated the first contract in the country covering a unit of graduate teaching assistants. The collective bargaining relationship, which existed formally until August 1980, was based on a voluntary Structure Agreement also negotiated by the parties, since there was no statutory basis for the relationship.;Collective bargaining among teaching assistants at Wisconsin grew out of several factors found elsewhere in the country, including student activism of the 1960s and a generalized dissatisfaction with the role of teaching assistants. In addition, there were factors peculiar to the University, such as the Chancellor's labor relations background and the State's progressive history. A legislative threat to withdraw out-of-state tuition remissions awarded to teaching assistants was also important.;Bargaining between the TAA and the University was both political and economic. Many teaching assistants hoped to bring about changes in the structure of the University and of society, and worked for control by the TAA of economic decisions, a key role in educational planning, and an end to what they saw as political repression. Others wanted a traditional labor union and were interested primarily in grievance procedures, job security, and similar provisions. Wages were not a bargainable subject. Bargaining and contract administration were complicated by these competing interests, and also by the University's non-hierarchical structure and reluctance to treat the teaching assistantship as a job rather than as an apprenticeship and source of financial support. Increasingly the faculty was irritated at strike threats, and saw the TAA as a challenge to its own educational policy decision-making authority. A 1980 strike centering around this issue ended without a contract, and later that year the successor Chancellor (a chemist) terminated the voluntary Structure agreement and withdrew from the collective bargaining relationship.