When faculty and academic staff across the University of Wisconsin System were given the right to form unions with collective bargaining powers last June, David Ahrens viewed the legislation as â??long overdueâ? and a â??well-deserved right.â?
After all, most of the 10,000 classified staff working within the UW System â?? including accountants, computer staff and custodians â?? have long been unionized. Ahrens believed it was only fair that the roughly 6,700 faculty and 13,200 academic staff across the system be afforded the same opportunity.
….Less than a year later, however, Ahrens is sharply critical of what he sees as the unprincipled tactics being employed by unions to absorb potentially thousands of academic staffers across the system into existing bargaining units without giving these workers a vote on whether or not they want in.