Academic Staff: ASEC statement

The following statement was unanimously passed by the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Academic Staff Executive Committee on July 31, 2009.

The Wisconsin Professional Employees Council (WPEC) and Wisconsin Science Professionals (WSP) have announced their intention to petition the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC) to have large numbers of academic staff assigned to their collective bargaining units.

The Academic Staff Executive Committee (ASEC) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison strongly opposes the assignment of academic staff to existing collective bargaining units. Such action would occur prior to any vote or even card signing by UW–Madison academic staff members to choose collective bargaining and would deny thousands of our academic staff the right to choose whether or not to be represented by these unions.

ASEC’s opposition to this action is consistent with the finding of the Legislative Fiscal Bureau and the position of the University of Wisconsin System administration that WERC does not have the authority to assign academic staff to existing collective bargaining units. ASEC continues to support the right of academic staff to have a choice regarding collective bargaining.