First Amendment alive and well in Madison, Wisconsin
The story: The Teaching Assistants’ Association at the University of Wisconsin at Madison – the oldest TA union in the nation – voted not to recertify their own union.
Last week, after hours of debate, the union’s members voted not to seek state certification to continue to act as a collective bargaining agent.
The vote is a requirement of Wisconsin’s new collective bargaining law – under the law, unions have to check with their memberships every year – they have to hold a vote – to make sure those members still want to be a union.
A majority of Madison’s TAs no longer want to be a union.
Quick aside for this next excerpt:
Union leaders said that the vote was a close one (they declined to reveal the totals), and taken with very mixed feelings by both those seeking to continue state certification and those arguing against.
I’m sure glad those union officials were around to tell us what the union opponents were thinking.
End aside. Back to the First Amendment.
The First Amendment guarantees speech and assembly, with the implied rights of expression and, more importantly at the moment, association. True, the TAs’ vote means even those who want the union can’t have it. It does not, however, prevent those pro-union TAs from organizing amongst themselves. It does not prevent those TAs from negotiation with the UW as a group.
It does prevent them from forcing other TAs to join up whether those TAs like it or not.
Which brings me to this last excerpt, found way down at the bottom of the story:
The new Wisconsin law on unions, (union co-president Adrienne) Pagac said, was an attempt to undercut unions. Last week’s decision was not one anyone wanted to make, but reflected the limited choices available, she said. “No one else should decide who makes us a union,” said Pagac. “We decide. It’s our decision, not Governor Walker’s decision.”
And you have made your decision, Ms. Pagac. Not Governor Walker. Governor Walker didn’t choose to non-recertify (or whatever the correct phrase is) your union. Your members – or, I suppose, former members – did.
I dare say that was the first time many – if not all – of your members have even had a say in that decision. Up until now, that decision was made for them. No input necessary.
Now respect their decision, whether you agree with it or not.
Hat tip Althouse.
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Ohhh, if they only could have gotten card check passed beforehand!
Yeah, and all they had to do is get 51% of the entire graduate student body to vote yes. Not 51% of the people who choose to vote, but 51% of everyone eligible to vote. If we instituted that high of a barrier for elected officials, we would never elect anyone for office in this country again. Just another example of how this is a bad, undemocratic law.
No, not the “entire graduate student body.” The TAs. That’s a small subset of the “entire graduate student body.” And the 51% rule was put in to prevent the unions from playing around with the vote, making sure only their supporters could be there in force.
It depends completely on the field of study. In sciences, such as physics, that require large grants to do their work, only 25% of the graduate students at Madison were TAs in 2010. In more humanities-based fields, such as English, 75% of the graduate students held TA appointments in 2010 (all numbers from their website) This also ignores that graduate students can change position from year to year. In a 5 year Ph.D. program, a student may be a TA for 2 years and take a research assistant position for 3 years, or some such. But whether we are talking about 1/4 or 3/4 is irrelevant; I stand by my argument that requiring a majority of _eligible_ voters to vote yes in order to pass something is undemocratic and wrong. In 2010, about 50% of the Wisconsin electorate voted, and Scott Walker got 52% of the votes. If the logic of this law were extended to elections to office, he would have only received 26% of the total possible vote; we would now have no governor. If this standard were held to all elections, our system would grind to a halt. It is not “just” or “free speech” to allow non-votes to count as much as votes, which functionally assumes that all non-voters would have voted “no.” This was not a law that was designed to be just or fair. It was a law designed to decertify unions by forcing them to meet an impossibly high standard, nothing more, nothing less.
So it was democratic when they didn’t get to vote at all?
If the unions are as valuable to their members as they and their supporters say, then getting 51% of eligible voters to vote yes should be no problem at all – especially considering the overwhelming levels of organization unions employ, and all the supposed rage at Gov. Walker and his policies.