Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Another Reason to GTFOut of Wisconsin

Two words: wage freeze.

This means that our next hope of any kind of a raise--even a cost of living adjustment--will come when I am 42. I will be 42, making less than $48K/year to teach a 4/4 load (most of it comp) and sit on god knows how many committees. [And in the meantime, the cost of EVERYTHING is going up. Including food, which is projected to rise 4%. Hooray. And let's not forget the increases in my contributions to my healthcare and pension.]

My OH is going to Chicago for a big meeting tonight. My hope is that within the next 8 months I will again be a resident. And believe it or not, that makes me sad--because I love my campus, my colleagues, and yes, my students. I fear that if I remain here, and have to watch this state slide down the toilet, I may end up self-medicating again, and I have a family to take care of now, so self-medicating's not really an option.

Seriously, if any of you have friends looking for jobs, steer them the fuck away from this state. It's headed for Arkansas. (See, I didn't attack Mississippi, which at least has a few things to recommend it. Arkansas, on the other hand...)

6 comments:

  1. The higher ed. guys should've went on strike in early 2011. Bad leadership on the AFT. If warehouse/truck drivers can organize, making well over 48K/yr, then surely highly educated professors are able to do the same.

    Don't give up hope with a 2 year wage freeze if it's possible to organize better union leadership. What are the chances of switching over to the Teamsters?

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  2. I'm not in a union, and with the loss of all collective bargaining rights, being in a union is basically a symbolic gesture at this point anyway.

    I wish we could strike. I wish we would get organized and every single one of us, state-wide, from janitors to high-level administrators, would just walk off the job at the same time, and bring the state to its knees.

    Won't happen.

    Funnily enough, it is illegal for public employees to strike in Wisconsin. Probably because of the whole idea of state workers "holding the rest of the state hostage" to our unreasonable demands.

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  3. I keep seeing jobs for the Fucktardia state system. I keep wanting to tell my Ph.D.s not to apply. But I only know of one person who turned down a job because of the labor politics of the institution (not the state, that time). She got a better job the next year, but that was different time.

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  4. Virginia has had a state wage freeze since 2007, with at least 1 or 2 years to go before even a _discussion_ of unfreezing. Although to be fair, I still don't think I'd move to Wisconsin.

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  5. ...Well, Arkansas DID give us Ha Ha Tonka...I'm jus' sayin'.

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