TAU at Western Michigan University

Today the TAU bargaining team will be submitting our first proposals!

Our negotiations are open to TAU members, so if you are available between 4:00 – 6:00p.m. today or 2:00 – 3:00p.m. on Thursday come join us in EWB 1114!  You’ll be supporting our bargaining team, and your future as a TA!  You don’t have to stay the whole time either!  You can come and go as you need to as long as you do so quietly.  Bring homework, things to study, or papers to grade too!  You can also have food in the room so bring a bag lunch and come join us!

Read on for more information about what's been happening at bargaining!

TAU made the Kalamazoo Gazette yesterday! 

Here are the links to the articles:

http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/11/graduate_teaching_assistants_p.html

http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/11/western_michigan_university_gr_9.html

We'll continue to post updates here, so check back regularly!

Thursday was our first bargaining session with the Administration.  This session involved setting up the ground rules for bargaining.  Our bargaining team pushed strongly for public negotiations.  This means the bargaining room would be open to all TAU members to come observe the bargaining process.  This is important to us because it educates you, the membership, on what bargaining involves, gives you direct access to the information involving bargaining, and it keeps our team accountable to our constituency.  The Administration refused to allow member access to the bargaining room, and adjourned the meeting citing an impasse.  Additionally, they stated that they would refuse to negotiate with us if we try to bring members into the bargaining room on Monday, despite no ground rules being present.

Read on to learn more about what's been happening.

For those of you wondering why you couldn't access our site for a few weeks, it was because we were hacked.  Not to worry though, as you can see we are back up and running!  Be sure to check back here regularly for information about upcoming events, bargaining updates, and more!

Also, a special thanks to our website guy Phil Ellison for basically rebuilding our website and making sure we lost only a very minimal amount of information in the process.  You are the best Phil and your work is greatly appreciated!