Madison’s TruStage union rallies for labor rights following 500 days of negotia tions

By Eliza Tool STAFF WRITER

Workers at Madison-based insurance company TruStage held a rally at the Wisconsin State Capitol building on July 29 in protest of the company’s alleged unfair labor practices and stalled contract negotiations.

TruStage — formerly known as CUNA Mutual Group — has been negotiating a new contract with the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 39 (OPEIU Local 39), which represents 450 TruStage employees.

Negotiations began in April 2022. OPEIU Local 39 representatives said during the rally that negotiations stalled despite union members going on strike earlier this year.

Union President Kathryn Bartlett-Mulvehill told rallygoers the union’s success hinges on community support.

“We need these strikes to be successful. We need the community to turn out when those employees are on strike,” Bartlett-Mulvehill said. “If they’re in pain, we all suffer as a community.”

OPEIU Local 39 conducted a three-week unfair labor strike late last spring outside TruStage’s office and filed unfair labor practice charges after negotiations beginning in 2022 failed.

TruStage began refusing to bargain with the union in January of 2023 and committed “multiple unfair labor practices” that union leaders filed with the National Labor Relations Board, OPEIU Local 39 Chief Steward Joe Evica said in an email to The Daily Cardinal, noting that over 90% of the union members voted in favor of authorizing the strike.

TruStage said in a statement the company has been negotiating with the union in good faith.

“From the start of the bargaining process, TruStage has negotiated with our employees’ best interests in mind,” the company said. “We want our employees to have a fair and marketcompetitive contract. We intend to continue working with the union to complete a fair deal on behalf of the employees they represent.”

The rally on July 29 galvanized a large support is about as high as it’s been in 50 years for workers having a voice in their workplace,” Pocan said, referencing recent negotiations between UPS and the Teamsters representing UPS workers. “All companies should look at their employees as their single best asset.”

July protest follows over 500 days of negotiations group of union advocates, including TruStage employees and elected officials. State Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard, D-Madison, and U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., lent their support, denouncing any situation where big corporations may have harnessed their authority to exploit workers.

Earlier this year, OPEIU Local 39 filed unfair labor practice charges against TruStage claiming the company illegally withheld information the union requested about TruStage’s decisions related to the rewarding or denial of bonuses for unionized employees.

After the union’s contract with TruStage expired in February 2022, TruStage and the union started negotiating a new contract. TruStage claims union representatives refused to communicate, the Cap Times reported in July. At the rally, TruStage employees told their side of the story.

Many TAs teach introductory-level courses within the department in which they study. At UW-Madison, these courses often have hundreds of students in lectures. A TA is responsible for grading and leading discussions for assigned sections, which also frequently number over a hundred students. They also assist with lectures, labs and other parts of the course as applicable.

For those pursuing graduate study, working as a teaching assistant in their field is a common avenue to tuition compensation. But as TAs at major universities across America demand better working conditions and higher pay, graduate student workers at UW-Madison say their pay doesn’t reflect their workload.

The annual total of the monthly stipend received by TAs is stated to be a minimum of $23,277 for all 50% graduate assistantship appointments this upcoming year. A 50% appointment means that the workload and compensation are proportional to half of a full “academic load,” or a 40-hour week.

“It is not the case that all corporations in Wisconsin are lifting up and taking care of the people who are creating their profits,” Agard said.

“When you look across the board, public

TruStage IT analyst and member of the contract-action team Vernon Winters said despite the company’s claims to support financial freedom, it has been unwilling to raise workers’ wages to match inflation.

“If you visit the TruStage website, you will read the following: ‘We’re on a mission to make a brighter financial future accessible to everyone,’” Winters said. “For TruStage workers whose wages are not keeping pace with inflation, how will their futures look?”

In July, the National Labor Relations Board

However, Andy Jones, a geoscience doctoral degree candidate and TA, explained that many TAs do not make even half that. Lower appointments like one-fifth, onethird or 40% are common, and they come with a lower stipend.

This means the workload is “theoretically lower,” said Jones, but “you’re not getting enough money and life is much harder.”

“If you take up another job, that’s fine, but you have less time to do your research, and that’s what counts here,” Jones added.”

Fifth-year chemistry masters student Robin Morgenstern cited “skyrocketing” rent as a driver for rising discontent among graduate student workers.

Lights

Continued from page 3 darkness allows for better sight into wooded areas, while higher light levels would make it more difficult.

Keeping the path unlit discourages night time use and encourages use of better-lit paths between Lakeshore and downtown, said Jeff Kirchman, an officer and natural areas liaison for UW-Madison Police Department.

“I agree with a lot of what Gary is saying there,” Kirchman said. “There is a pathway that has been set up to be fully lighted, and that was what was determined to be the approved route that people get from the State Street area to the Lakeshore dorms as opposed to utilizing the Lakeshore Path.”

Still, some students feel the lack of lighting is a main concern.

“When the sun goes down, there’s literally no light at all,” senior Kat Schneider said. “It’s super heavily wooded, which I understand trying to preserve the nature aspect of it, but since it’s so heavily used by students who live over in the Lakeshore dorms, I think it would be nice to have some sort of soft lighting. Something is better than nothing.”

But Kirchman said he believes Lakeshore

Path is safe.

Records from the UWPD incident log between 2019 and December 2021 show a total of 847 instances where the police department was present on the path. Over 800 of these instances were routine checks. Sixteen instances were due to 911 calls — the log does not indicate whether any action was taken or the reason for the calls.

“The department as an organization is not enacting any actions at this point that are extra patrols or anything like that, just because we haven’t had any problems with it to speak of,” Kirchman explained. “I’ve been here for going on six years and I can’t think of — in my personal experience — a single situation where we’ve had what I would consider to be a truly dangerous situation on the Lakeshore Path.”

With lighting the path becoming a divisive issue, ASM has considered alternative safety measures, including increasing the number of emergency call boxes that are built along the path.

Currently, there is only one emergency call box on the roughly one-mile stretch of path from Memorial Union to Dejope Residence Hall, located at the base of an intersecting path to Waters Residence Hall. There are only two total emergency call boxes present on the 2.2-mile path.

UWPD previously said the emergency call boxes are unnecessary, as they are outdated and costly. However, Kirchman dissented.

“Any time that people have access to means of communication for emergency purposes, I’m in favor,” Kirchman said. “I don’t think they’re a bad idea because I think there’s a deterrent effect to them.”

Kirchman said if he were to add another emergency call box, he would place it near Kronshage Residence Hall — the approximate middle point between Dejope and Waters.

“It definitely is sketchy to be out there alone and to know that you don’t have any resources if something were to happen,” UW-Madison Junior Mia Vaughan said. “If there’s more of those emergency stands throughout it and it’s more lit, that would help with the safety and [I would] be more comfortable walking on it.”

Vaughan said her friends have been approached on the path at night by an “older man” making racially insensitive and objectifying comments toward women.

“If he tried something, they didn’t have anybody,” she said. “Whenever I go on the trail, or I’m with my friends, usually we — especially as women — make sure we have one of our guy friends who’s there as a deterrent for predatory men.”

UW-Madison Junior Henry Hinchsliff under-