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Save zero-cost health care! Lower tuition!

TA & Undergrad Solidarity Festival & March

Sponsored by: TAA (AFT-WI #3220), Student Labor Action Coalition, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, Multicultural Student Coalition, Black Student Union, International Socialist Organization, Queer Student Alliance, ASM Legislative Affairs Committee, Four Lakes Green Party, Madison Infoshop, National Lawyers Guild

As you may or may not know, our teaching assistants and other UW-Madison workers are in the midst of a tough battle in their contract negotiations with the state government. Through their union, the Teaching Assistants Association (TAA), they are fighting to maintain their zero-cost health insurance premiums, along with other essential benefits. The state and university’s contract proposal would essentially be a wage decrease.

At the same time, undergraduate students will see their tuition rise another 14% in the fall, after an even larger increase this past year. This is the by far largest tuition hike in the history of the University of Wisconsin! This summer Governor Doyle and the state legislature will start writing the budget for the next cycle, and unless they hear from us, they are sure to include even more hikes. We demand that the governor not raise tuition any more but instead repeal this latest round of hikes.

But how can the state and UW afford to give us back the benefits and money that they’re taking from us, you may ask, given the ongoing budget crisis? The truth is that it’s not so much a matter of how much money there is, but who is paying and what the money’s going to. We need to:

-> give subsidies to students and workers instead of to corporations
-> make schools the priority instead of prisons
-> ensure that the right to health care is available to everyone instead of only to those who can afford it

This is an issue of the quality of our education. One of the reasons why so many of the best TA’s and graduate students in the country come to UW-Madison is because, although their wages aren’t great (most make under $10,000 per year), their benefits used to be on par with other state employees. If the state takes away those benefits, we won’t continue to get the first-class TA’s and PA’s we have now.

And this is an issue of access to education. As we all know, it’s hard enough to pay for education. The Wisconsin state constitution is supposed to guarantee an equal opportunity to education for all the state’s citizens. But right now, many of us have to work 2 jobs and take out huge loans to get through college; a lot of our friends and classmates can’t even attend UW-Madison because it’s so expensive.

We need to reverse this trend of balancing the budget on the backs of TA’s, students, and workers. It’s time to Wisconsin the best state in the country in terms of health care, education, and labor rights.

See you on April 1st!