Letter from the Editor: Working in Wisconsin

By Sophia Vento and Jessica Sonkin EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AND MANAGING EDITOR

The University of WisconsinMadison, the city of Madison and the state of Wisconsin have a long tradition within the labor movement, prompting questions about the past, present and future of work across the state.

At a university level, the Teaching Assistants’ Association is credited as the first graduate student worker union in the country — ever. In Wisconsin, worker advocacy shaped other national and state laws relating to both compensation and unemployment.

Moreover, we’ve seen how the dismantling of Wisconsin’s labor relations system through the 2011 passage of Act

By Nadya Hayasi STAFF WRITER

The Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA) at the University of WisconsinMadison works to ensure all graduate students earn a living wage and continues the fight to address issues within the workplace a ecting each department within the university.

TAA is the labor union representing all graduate student workers at UW-Madison, including teaching assistants (TAs), research assistants (RAs), graduate assistants (GAs) and fellows.

Third-year microbiology graduate student and TAA organizer Madeline Topf described the TAA as a community where graduate students come together to share their concerns regarding their working environment and address issues as a coalition.

“The TAA is a community of grad workers, so it’s really kind of a vehicle for people to have support on any of these issues that they and their fellow coworkers care about,” Topf said.

One issue the TAA has been particularly vocal about is the wages graduate students receive and the fees they have to pay back to the school.

10 profoundly a ected hundreds of thousands of workers across the state. Contemporary issues ranging from the recognition of a nurses union to graduate student workers’ rights at UW-Madison are deeply rooted in Gov. Scott Walker’s administration’s decision. Despite much of our sta being elementary-aged when Act 10 was implemented, our native Wisconsin sta ers remember the impact of the controversial law on their teachers and schools, and this impact lingers today — over 10 years later.

Throughout our time on campus, as reporters, students and community members, we’ve seen how workers’ advocacy for safe, healthy working

International students also pay an additional $200 in fees which go towards the cost of maintaining international student services.

“We don’t get paid a living wage, we don’t get paid enough,” Maya Banks, a fifthyear Ph.D. candidate in the mathematics department, shared. “We make around $25,000 a year [in my department], which is about $10,000 less than the cost of living in Madison. And that doesn’t include what we have to pay in segregated fees and international student fees.”

To attain a living wage in Madison and a ord food, medical bills, housing, transportation and other miscellaneous costs, an individual would need to earn at least $36,000, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s living wage calculator. Not being able to attain that number causes graduate students to worry about their ability to a ord basic necessities.

“I’m kind of living this reality which includes putting o going to the doctor, worry- conditions and better compensation shaped our community. From petitions to unionize and unionizations of co ee shops and bakeries to fights for increases in minimum wages, working Wisconsinites are at the forefront of critical political, economic and social conversations across the state.

Furthermore, the e ects of the COVID pandemic on our labor force and the way Wisconsinites work have been staggering. If anything, the global health crisis, aside from exposing deeply ingrained inequities, ineptitudes and injustices within our economic and labor system, has forever changed our community’s relationship with and perception of work.

In February 2023, President Joe

Biden even made the Madison area his first stop following his State of the Union address, sharing his “bluecollar blueprint” for the economy and labor force at a local labor union training center.

At The Daily Cardinal, we recognize the value of labor and work across this campus, city and state. With this special issue, we hope to center the voices of working Wisconsinites while exposing their struggles and highlighting needed areas of support. We invite our readers to explore the intrinsic role of labor in the Wisconsin economy and contemplate our community’s responsibility in our state’s labor force.