UPDATE: From Todd

Dear Local 395 members, 

I have heard from many members in the past 2 days in regards to the proposal to the WITC Board of Trustees, asking to extend our current collective bargaining agreement. There have been many questions, so I hope this will clarify some of the concerns.  I understand your concerns and recognize that the financial impact will be huge for you and many of our members and their families. You are correct in the fact, that paying 12% of our health insurance costs, which is in the bill, does not apply to us, under our current contract. However, on July 1^st, our contract becomes null and void unless we are granted an extension by WITC. They do not have to give us an extension. If we do not get an extension after July 1, under Walkers Bill there will be no right to bargain anything other than a wage increase which will be tied to the CPI which was 1.5% this year. Bargaining on any other issues will be illegal. No bargaining about benefits, working conditions, hours, class sizes, all gone! Will the College do that? I wish I knew for sure.  

All current contracts that are in effect when his bill becomes law will be allowed to continue operating as is until they expire. That is why this is  happening so very quickly and why we are asking the Board again to reconsider our proposal from February 24th, which they denied.  The Board of Trustees are holding their monthly meeting on Monday morning in Shell Lake. The law can go into effect next Saturday 3/26/11 at 12:01 am. That does not leave much time to try to make things happen. If the Board says they are interested in our proposal, we would have to work out the language, and then have the membership, YOU, vote on the proposal. You have to approve/not approve the proposal for it to take effect.

Many school districts around the state have signed contract extensions giving the same concessions that we offered. We feel the value of having a contract, even with substantial cuts, outweighs not having a contract. The College and all of the school districts are going to be experiencing very severe cuts to their operating budgets and will have to make cuts. Does that include layoffs? Quite possibly. If we can help the College save some money by offering to pay some of these costs, it may save some jobs. Bob’s earlier email explained the potential cuts to WITC, and with just the property tax freeze, that means over $1,000,000 less dollars to WITC. That does not figure in reduced state aid or other cuts.  

This is a very serious situation which I, and the other Executive Board members, do not take lightly. We feel this proposal is in the best interest of all members, and not to make light of you or anybody else’s situation, no matter how much we give up in benefits or how large a cut we have to take, it still pays more than unemployment.  

This link takes you to a summary of the bill.

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_ed4823fa-5042-11e0-ba6b-001cc4c03286.html 

If you want to read the complete bill, there is a link at the end of the first paragraph of this article. http://profs.wisc.edu/?tag=budget-repair-bill 

I hope this helps.  

Todd A. Larson

President Local 395

Masonry Instructor