Classified staff seeks salary contract approval

Represented classified staff working for the State of Wisconsin, including those at the University of Wisconsin, are stepping up their efforts to gain legislative approval of new salary contracts.

An abnormally large number of classified employees called in sick at some state agencies last week, but not at UW–Madison. Yet many of the university’s classified staffers did choose to wear armbands signifying their support of the contracts.

Unionized state workers haven’t had a pay raise for nearly two years. They are among the employees covered by 15 contracts that had been negotiated last year by Gov. Scott McCallum’s administration that await action by the Legislature.

The Legislature’s Joint Committee on Employment Relations must approve the contracts. Then they must be voted on by the full Legislature and signed by the current governor.

As of Tuesday, the committee had not scheduled a hearing on the contracts.

Lawsuits filed by the WSEU and the Wisconsin Federation of Teachers argue that the committee has a legal duty to hold a hearing and approve the contracts because the deals have been ratified.

However, many legislators question whether the state can afford the salary increases included in the contracts because it faces a multi-billion-dollar budget deficit.

A Legislative Fiscal Bureau analysis of the contracts estimates the annual cost for 2002-03 at $57 million and the estimated annualized cost in 2003-04 and succeeding years at $124.7 million when compensation plan costs for non-represented classified employees are taken into consideration.