LTE Abuse at UW Madison
Abuse of Limited Term Employees has been a problem at UW Madison for twenty years. LTE positions were intended to cover short term vacancies – while a worker was on medical leave or while a permanent position was being filled, for example –but have become a shadow workforce, doing permanent work without the benefits enjoyed by classified civil service employees.
There are over 1200 hundred LTE’s on campus. Most do administrative support or blue collar work. Classified UW employees earn at least $9.69 an hour and earn benefits and a pension, and have the right under state law to organize a union. The benefit package is substantial, over $10,000 a year for a worker receiving family health insurance. Those represented by unions have protection against being fired for arbitrary reasons and a voice for decent working conditions.
LTE’s have none of these things. In addition to being paid poverty wages, they are subject to abuse by supervisors with no one to stand up for them. LTE’s can be fired for no reason at all, and those who speak up about problems at work usually are. LTE’s are prohibited by law from receiving benefits or organizing unions. Under state law, if an LTE is found to have worked over 1044 hours in one job, the LTE is fired. Nothing bad happens to the supervisor responsible.
Sometimes campus managers just ignore the law limiting the hours an LTE works. Sometimes an LTE moves around to different jobs – six months as a custodian, followed by six months in food service, followed by six months as a custodian. Sometimes they stay at the same desk doing the same work but paid from a different line item. The result is the same – the work is permanent and the LTE position is “temporary” in name only.
Lat August, Vice Chancellor Darrel Brazzel wrote to the president of the Wisconsin State Employees Union that UW Madison had no interest in converting LTE’s into classified positions. In mid February, he convened an LTE Collaboration Group to study the LTE problem. The group is to meet once a week until the end of March- until just after students vote on the referendum to rise over $230 million in seg fees to fund the Wisconsin Union Facilities Improvement Plan.
Nothing has changed since Brazzel wrote his letter in August, except that this referendum is staring him in the face. The University’s traditional practice of refusing to deal with labor unions in good faith makes it impossible to see this as anything other than a smoke screen.
Other articles on this blog detail of who works for less than a living wage on the UW campus and the racist nature of the LTE abuse at UW Madison.
There are over 1200 hundred LTE’s on campus. Most do administrative support or blue collar work. Classified UW employees earn at least $9.69 an hour and earn benefits and a pension, and have the right under state law to organize a union. The benefit package is substantial, over $10,000 a year for a worker receiving family health insurance. Those represented by unions have protection against being fired for arbitrary reasons and a voice for decent working conditions.
LTE’s have none of these things. In addition to being paid poverty wages, they are subject to abuse by supervisors with no one to stand up for them. LTE’s can be fired for no reason at all, and those who speak up about problems at work usually are. LTE’s are prohibited by law from receiving benefits or organizing unions. Under state law, if an LTE is found to have worked over 1044 hours in one job, the LTE is fired. Nothing bad happens to the supervisor responsible.
Sometimes campus managers just ignore the law limiting the hours an LTE works. Sometimes an LTE moves around to different jobs – six months as a custodian, followed by six months in food service, followed by six months as a custodian. Sometimes they stay at the same desk doing the same work but paid from a different line item. The result is the same – the work is permanent and the LTE position is “temporary” in name only.
Lat August, Vice Chancellor Darrel Brazzel wrote to the president of the Wisconsin State Employees Union that UW Madison had no interest in converting LTE’s into classified positions. In mid February, he convened an LTE Collaboration Group to study the LTE problem. The group is to meet once a week until the end of March- until just after students vote on the referendum to rise over $230 million in seg fees to fund the Wisconsin Union Facilities Improvement Plan.
Nothing has changed since Brazzel wrote his letter in August, except that this referendum is staring him in the face. The University’s traditional practice of refusing to deal with labor unions in good faith makes it impossible to see this as anything other than a smoke screen.
Other articles on this blog detail of who works for less than a living wage on the UW campus and the racist nature of the LTE abuse at UW Madison.
posted by Union Worker at 2:14 PM
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