Grad workers are organizing against the most notorious anti-union law in the US
By August Easton-Calabria, member of Workers Strike Back & candidate for TAA Co-President
Published April 3, 2024
I’m a graduate worker at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and with Workers Strike Back my co-workers and I are getting organized in defiance of one of the most repressive and anti-union laws in the country!
Act 10 is a law that forces public-sector union members to vote to certify our unions every year in order to retain our collective bargaining rights, and prevents unions from bargaining for wages over annual inflation – which means we effectively can’t bargain for a raise. It was passed in 2011 in spite of massive protests against it, just three years after the devastating global financial crash.
Act 10 was explicitly designed to foist the crisis created by the corporate elite onto us, the workers. But that was thirteen long years ago, and the labor movement in the US is waking up again. Since 2011, overturning Act 10 should have been the primary objective of the labor movement in Wisconsin, and union leadership should have coordinated to mobilize their memberships to strike in defiance of the law. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case. We need a new strategy.
Abiding by this anti-union law makes it impossible to fight on bread-and-butter issues like wages: my self-identified progressive university doesn’t even have to bargain with my union, the Teachers Assistant Association (TAA) because it’s been decertified. With across-the-board inflation and rapid rent increases nationwide, our already-low University of Wisconsin graduate stipends are quickly becoming unlivable. The university has the audacity to send us emails advertising the local food bank to make ends meet, instead of paying us a living wage.
Bargaining for anything other than wages up to inflation is illegal for public-sector unions under Act 10. In other words, our demand for $50,000 stipends violates Wisconsin state law. But that is precisely the point.
Martin Luther King said “one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws”, and we’re building Workers Strike Back in Madison to build a broad, organized fightback against Act 10, a law that locks us all into permanent poverty to the benefit of the bosses.
One current focus is rebuilding the TAA back into a powerful union and to fight for $50,000 stipends and 12-month contracts for all graduate workers. That’s what is necessary to rent a one-bedroom apartment in Madison without being rent-burdened – rent has increased over 30% since 2020 in Madison! Being a member of WSB helped me gain the organizing skills and confidence to build a movement to fight for bold demands like this.
We need to build a strong movement that’s capable of re-certifying our union to regain bargaining rights, getting strike-ready, and organizing with other public-sector unions, like Madison’s teachers and nurses. We’ve been organizing for months and have built a base of graduate workers pushing this campaign forward – to succeed, we need to win our union to this campaign. We’ve decided our next step is to fight to win leadership of our graduate union!
Now more than ever, we need to reckon with the potential power of an organized, united working class. Act 10 is hated in Wisconsin – after all, workers have borne the brunt of it for thirteen years. Now’s the time to unite the labor movement in Wisconsin around a democratic and fighting strategy to defeat Act 10, and that’s what we’ve started here with Workers Strike Back – but it’s going to take all of us, and we need your help!
Building a union drive and movement of this scale requires serious resources. Can you make a $50 donation to Workers Strike Back today? Better yet, join Workers Strike Back and become part of the struggle to rebuild a fighting labor movement!
Solidarity,
August Easton-Calabria, member of Workers Strike Back & candidate for TAA Co-President
