Some Unexpected Good News for Limited Term Employees on our Campus

In light of all the controversy about Governor Walker’s budget repair bill, and the upcoming cuts to our salary and benefits, I was elated to see the following in my email today, a memo from our HR Director, on behalf of our Chancellor, initiating a committee and other initiatives to represent “limited term” employees. This is a milestone!

In November 2009 I published an article about the inequities surrounding limited term employment on our campus. Soon after, I was asked to join the Commission on the Status of Women. I brought this LTE issue to the Commission and we spent all of the 2010 academic year preparing and drafting a proposal that we recently sent to the Chancellor with specific recommendations, including the need to employ limited term employees at a living wage.

It was a slow and tedious process—and just recently I had begun to believe the proposal would sit somewhere on someone’s desk and fade into oblivion. I was even more disturbed when Governor Walker’s budget repair bill was released, which will cut health insurance and retirement system benefits for all limited term employees.

Then, in an email to campus yesterday, the Chancellor said the following:

There are many misperceptions about state employee and specifically university employee salaries and benefits as being significantly above those in the private sector. We all need to be aware of the facts and make sure that we communicate them to our legislators and fellow citizens. Here, for example, are the median annual base salaries of our employee categories:

Classified employees (419 employees) $31,540

Unclassified (810) $53,217

LTE (88 who are in the WRS) $25,140.

Since the governor’s announcement on Friday, I have been truly impressed by our campus community’s response. I share the genuine concern for those most affected by regressive elements of this proposal, namely LTE and low-salary employees. We have been working with the Women’s Commission to see how we might address the difficult status of LTE employees, and this bill will make that task even more urgent.

I was impressed by the sensitivity and awareness of how devastating this budget repair bill is for limited term employees. In my eight years here, I've never heard anyone at the administrative level even approach the topic of "limited term" employees or their rights. I couldn’t help but feel that in part, our work on the Women’s Commission had played a vital role in spreading awareness of this important issue.

Then, today, I saw the following from HR. To have this equity initiative, backed by HR and the Chancellor, complete with a committee to represent LTE issues, and tasked with the objective of securing a living wage, is monumental! LTEs have never had any representation on this campus, and I would go as far as to say it has been somewhat taboo to even talk about it.

February 10, 2011

To: All Classified and Limited Term Employees

From: Donna Weber

Director, Human Resources

RE: Promotion of Equality

Chancellor Levin-Stankevich has asked me to lead our classified staff, limited term employees and academic staff in identifying perceptions of, and actual inequities across campus employee groups. I am honored and pleased to lead this “Gold Arrow Project Charter,” which is the first of its kind on this campus, and a direct result of the Strategic Planning efforts.

Although we have limited authority to adjust salaries, we pledge to do whatever we can to ensure a feeling of inclusivity and equality for all employees.

I am working very closely with the Chancellor, Teresa O’Halloran and Jack Connell, and they are committed to this important effort. This project is supported by the Women’s Commission. I am also working collaboratively with the Student Affairs Leadership Fellow (Christopher Buckley) to enhance our new employee orientations.

One of the first things I want to do is establish a Staff Council that would be willing to work with me by supporting the effort and providing a voice for all classified staff and limited term employees to provide important and valuable input to the UW Eau Claire administration. This council could bring forth recommendations, ideas for professional development, etc.

The current classified committees (scholarship committees, professional development committee, etc) would be folded into this larger committee.

Following are some ideas that I (and others) have for the committee’s charge:

• Explore options for professional development

• Plan and prepare for a professional development day/s for ALL Employees to be held in August (between summer session and the onset of the academic year)

• Find new ways to reward employees for excellence in service

• Provide a collective voice for the administration

• Enhance new employee orientations

• Encourage the administration to have classified representation on more administrative search committees

• Provide LTEs a living wage

If the budget repair bill succeeds at stripping limited term employees or their health insurance and retirement benefits, I’m not sure how much this campus initiative will realistically help them…but it gives me hope that with persistence and passion you can bring an issue to the table and make something happen. Hopefully we can continue the work, even if we must wait until we have the leadership of a new governor.