Will the UW’s New Personnel Policies Be Guided by Progressive Principles?

Will the UW’s New Personnel Policies Be Guided by Progressive Principles?

In the whirlwind of last winter’s crises over worker rights, budget cuts, university autonomy and much more, it was inevitable that significant changes in public policy buried in Walker’s budget would escape scrutiny.
One of the critical changes in state law affecting UW employees was the repeal of civil service protections. (Of course, one could reasonably question why the issue of civil service protections for University employees should be addressed in a presumably fiscal bill, i.e. the budget.) In place of the statutory civil service protection, the UW System and UW Madison must establish new personnel systems.
It is difficult to briefly summarize the scope of regulation and protections under the state civil service law. http://docs.legis.wi.gov/statutes/statutes/230 (WI Statute) Chapter 230 describes the procedures for job transfers, promotions, lay-offs, forms of leaves and discharge for state employees whether or not they were represented by a union. Also, protections from unfair treatment, discipline or discharge, discrimination as well as bias as a result of political activities were provided. The law gave the right to appeal decisions before impartial decision-makers as well as judicial review in event of a dispute. Although relatively few UW employees made use of the civil service laws directly by contesting an employer’s decision and seeking Commission or court review, the law itself became the basis for progressive personnel policies.
As noted above, now that UW employees are excluded from civil service protections, the UW System and UW-Madison are required to develop separate personnel systems that encompass many of the areas of the civil service code. They may also include many additional areas not addressed in the civil service law such as retention, academic recruitment and other activities peculiar to the academic environment.
Towards that end, UW-Madison administration, under the leadership of Vice Chancellor Darrell Bazzell, organized a work group consisting of managers of the HR offices, representatives of most of the employee groups on campus including all of the unions that had contracts, academic staff association, PROFS, the University Committee, Wisconsin University Union, supervisory unrepresented staff and students.
Although the work group was initially organized to develop a common campus perspective on the effects of the New Badger Partnership on personnel, the focus of the committee’s work turned to developing principles for a new personnel system for UW-Madison (see attached documents). This new system will be of special importance to the thousands of UW-Madison’s administrative, clerical, maintenance, custodial and trades employees no longer covered by collective bargaining agreements.

In a memo to the legislature written before the de-certification of the unions, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau wrote:
Indeed, given the authority to create a separate personnel system, UW-Madison may be able to eliminate the distinction between classified and unclassified employees altogether and create one singular personnel system. However, since most classified employees are currently represented by labor unions and covered by contracts, it is unclear to what extent unclassified and classified employees could be merged into a single personnel system. (Note: Now that the employees are not covered by contracts, the distinction between classified/unclassified has been eliminated.)

Over the next year, work groups under the direction of the UW Human Resources office will create a new personnel system that is unique to our campus. It will probably adopt elements of the existing system, the civil service laws and the union contracts. Perhaps most important to everyone on campus, is the fact that the new personnel system will control compensation. While the notion of a pay increase is a distant memory, when and if it does return, the structure of the compensation system would be the product of the UW- Madison HR system.
Members of the work groups will largely be drawn from HR staff, department chairs/administrators, subject-matter experts and nominal representation from employee groups. The membership of the work groups will be announced in early November.
After six months of discussion of principles for our personnel system, we expect that the work groups will make every attempt to integrate them into their work. Members of the work group will monitor the work of the HR groups and ensure that their products are consistent with these principles and best practices. Also, an advisory committee has been established that is charged with assuring that these principles are reflected in the product of the work groups.
Even with the most transparent process and articulated principles, the new personnel policies and procedures will largely be driven by the top-level administration. However, with significant input and interest from the employees of UW, we may retain much of the rights and protections that were lost as a result of the repeal of our coverage by civil service laws. Without popular participation, upper-management will create policies that largely benefit its interests.
We expect that campus forums on the proposed personnel system will be held throughout campus over the next year. In order to spur discussion and participation, we are distributing the principles to you and other faculty and staff. The process of creating this new personnel system will be lengthy (more than one year) and often involve complex bureaucratic detail. But it will also deeply affect the work-life and careers of every UW employee. Wisconsin University Union will make every effort to participate in the process and to keep you informed of its developments.