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Thursday, February 11, 2010
Martin defends UW primate research ethics lorenzo zemella/the daily cardinal
Several Madison Metro bus drivers earned over $100,000 in a recent budget review, representing the highest-paid government workers for the city of Madison.
Extensive overtime hours raise Madison Metro safety concerns By Ariel Shapiro The Daily Cardinal
A Madison bus driver who worked overtime was the highest paid city government employee of 2009, raising questions as to how safe and fiscally responsible the practice of allowing unlimited overtime is. According to the Wisconsin State Journal, bus driver John Nelson earned $159,258 in 2009, with overtime and other pay accounting for $109,892 of that amount. Metro Transit General Manager Chuck Kamp said there were six other drivers who earned over $100,000 for the year. Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said the figures are cause for concern “on a couple of different levels.” “First and foremost is safety,”
Verveer said. “On a practical level, it seems crazy that you have somebody driving a large bus that many hours in a week. The secondary concern is a fiscal one.” Kamp said the current rules of scheduling require a break of at least 10 hours between shifts, but employees can waive that provision at their discretion. However, Kamp said Metro riders have no reason to worry about how many hours their drivers may be working. “Collectively, they had about 170 years of safe driving during their careers,” Kamp said of Nelson and the other $100,000-plus earners. “That’s pretty compelling data. If for some reason the data were to change, we would take another look at it.”
ASM approves campaign to help increase work-study pay By Daniel Tollefson The Daily Cardinal
The Associated Students of Madison created an informationgathering campaign at a Student Council meeting Wednesday, focusing on financial aid for UW-Madison students on campus, specifically with regard for workstudy employment programs. Carl Fergus, UW-Madison senior, said the work-study campaign intends to make up for a growing tendency of the U.S. government to withhold money entitled to students qualified to receive financial aid through work-study programs and guaranteed by FAFSA. Fergus, who will lead the campaign, said he hopes it will eventually increase the base rate of pay provided by the university in work-study jobs to help compen-
sate for the government’s absence. “It’s great for the U.S. government to say we give this much money in aid to the student, but the sad thing is, students don’t really get the aid … my personal amount is $1,200 for this year from the government that I’m not getting,” he said. Fergus said he recognizes the fact that while the campaign has high aspirations, it will not be able to provide immediate results. He said for the spring semester the newly enacted financial aid campaign will aim to investigate some fundamental points concerning students who are eligible for work-study programs on campus. “We want to figure out how many students are actually in the student council page 3
The amount of spending in overtime in 2009 was greater than the personal wage savings could make up for, and it is the budget, not safety issues, that city officials find most concerning. “For us it is not the issue of these particular drivers so much, the issue is really overall overtime,” Rachel Strauch-Nelson, spokesperson for Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, said. “We do need to take a look at that and we are in the process of doing that to make sure Metro does not exceed its overtime budget in the future.” Kamp said labor contract negotiations will provide an opportunity to possibly revise the system, but said overtime and personal wage savings balanced out in the last few years; 2009 may have been an exception.
Chancellor Biddy Martin wrote a response Wednesday to the members of the Dane County Board of Supervisors, who have recently expressed concerns with the ethics of primate research at UW-Madison. The Board’s members sent a letter to Martin last week claiming the All-Campus Animal Care and Use Committee could not issue a fair ruling on whether the UW-Madison primate research is ethical. Many members said they believe that the salaried A-CACUC members were acting in the UW’s interest when making their decision that the UW-Madison primate research is ethical. Martin said in her response that some members of the board are community members with no association to UW-Madison. She added that the committee members who are UW-Madison employees were “selected on the basis of their expertise, experience and willing-
ness to participate in the timeconsuming and complex process of overseeing and evaluating our animal programs.” Eric Sandgren, UW-Madison Research Animal Resource Center director, also said in a statement that primate research on campus has to meet certain ethics protocols before it can begin. “UW-Madison Animal Care and Use Committee answer the question of whether experimenting on primates, or any animal, is ethical,” he said in a statement. “Just as for experiments involving humans, only if the answer is ‘yes’ will an animal study be allowed to proceed.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture issued several violations in December regarding UW-Madison’s animal facilities, including sanitation and ventilation concerns. In January, however, the USDA cleared UW-Madison of all these violations. —Kelsey Gunderson
Harvard graduate encourages activism By Estephany Escobar The Daily Cardinal
Derrick Ashong, Harvard graduate, musician, actor and political activist, discussed the importance of activism in bringing positive change to the country at the Distinguished Lecture Series Wednesday. In his presentation, Ashong said to change the country’s political
and economic situation, everyone needs to be involved in this process, not only politicians. He said he believes young people can have a large impact on social change and encouraged students to get involved in their community. “Our generation in particular and those following thereafter need speaker page 3
Let me see that tong-tah-tong-tong-tong
patrick shipe/the daily cardinal
UW-Madison students gather at the ASM Kickoff Meeting Wednesday night to enjoy roasted pig.
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”