Commit to real improvements for graduate workers and international students at UW–Madison
UW–Madison Chancellor Blank, Provost Mangelsdorf, Vice Chancellor Heller, and Dean Karpus
Tell UW–Madison administrators: Don't push grad workers!
Stand up for graduate students and international students at UW-Madison! Sign the TAA’s petition for a living wage, relief from mandatory fees, and quality, consistent workplace protections. Learn more about our campaign here.
On April 26, members of the Teaching Assistants’ Association attended a meeting with university administrators. The administrators left and called the police when graduate worker representatives entered the room and tried to tell their stories. Dean Karpus shoved a graduate worker on his way out. The police declared the gathering unlawful, then removed sixteen graduate workers from the building.
Earlier in April, the TAA organized a sit-in at Bascom Hall to demand fair pay, fee relief, and consistent policies. It took four hundred graduate workers and allies occupying the building to elicit a response from UW-Madison administration. However, Vice Chancellor Heller and Dean Karpus did not commit to any improvements. Instead, they decided to cut thousands of graduate workers out of hard-won workplace protections and deny graduate workers the right to shared governance procedures.
Administrators cannot continue to push around graduate workers, cannot continue to discriminate against international students, and cannot continue to put thousands of graduate workers at risk by denying them consistent, quality policies.
Sponsored by
To:
UW–Madison Chancellor Blank, Provost Mangelsdorf, Vice Chancellor Heller, and Dean Karpus
From:
[Your Name]
You must immediately commit to supporting graduate workers and international students at UW–Madison. Your responses to recent actions by hundreds of graduate workers, international students, and community allies show that you are not meeting the needs of UW–Madison students or the workers who run the university. We want to see concrete actions, not evasive rhetoric.
Take the following steps to demonstrate your value for graduate workers and international students:
1. Immediately approve the draft employment policies for all graduate workers as proposed by graduate workers. This draft was developed by a shared governance group and was submitted for final approval in April 2018.
2. Immediately train supervisors and administrators on these policies. Supervisors and administrators must understand the new employment policies for all graduate workers when they go into effect.
3. Immediately approve a charter to create a standing committee with graduate workers to improve graduate employment policies. Our policies have not been updated since 2009.
4. Commit to providing full relief from segregated fees for graduate workers by Fall 2019. We do not ask for exemption: we ask the university to fund the fees as part of the employment packages for ALL graduate workers. Peer institutions have done this without issue.
5. Commit to ending the international student fee by Fall 2019. The university formerly covered this fee, and the Madison City Council has declared them discriminatory.
6. Commit to a specific plan to pay all graduate workers a living income within the next four years. Significant raises are needed to bring compensation up to livable levels, especially given Madison’s high cost of living.
UW-Madison has a long tradition of shared governance. You have a responsibility to listen to graduate workers rather than deny them access to decision-making. Only after ending the discriminatory international student fee will you begin to repair the damage done. Only after making these commitments to improving graduate students’ working conditions at UW–Madison will you begin to regain the trust of graduate workers and the university community.