Successes and Accomplishments

ASPRO is an accomplished advocate for the Academic Staff. ASPRO’s lobbyists and member volunteers have established a record of success with the Wisconsin State Legislature, the Board of Regents, and the UW System Administration.

Here are some highlights:

• Stopped five separate proposals since 1995 to treat academic staff differently from the faculty with regard to salary and benefits. ASPRO’s efforts have maintained a unified pay plan, preserving equitable treatment of academic staff.

• Killed three legislative proposals which would have enabled faculty and academic staff to bargain collectively, but prohibited academic staff from being in the same collective bargaining unit as the faculty. ASPRO's efforts assured that the law granting collective bargaining rights, which passed in 2009, allowed faculty and academic staff to join in the same unit. For more information about these proposals, please visit ASPRO’s companion site: Is a Union for You?

• Educated past and current Regents, Legislators, and Wisconsin citizens for the past twenty years about Academic Staff, their contributions to the UW System, and their concerns for current and future employment conditions.

• Protected indefinite appointments. ASPRO intervention stopped campus human resources directors from misinterpreting Regent action as a directive to eliminate the granting of indefinite status to worthy academic staff members.

• Stopped a UW-Eau Claire Student Senate proposal to raise tuition and use the funds to increase the salaries of faculty, but not academic staff.

• Stopped Governor Doyle’s budget proposal to add 100 faculty and eliminate 200 “administrative” (that is, academic staff) positions across the UW System.

• Orchestrated the appointment, and reappointment, of an academic staff member to the State’s Group Insurance Board.

• Achieved first-day health insurance premium pick-up (formerly premiums were paid entirely by new employees for the first six months of WRS employment).

• Lobbied successfully for an increase in the Wisconsin Retirement System multiplier.

• Lobbied the UW System Board of Regents for three personal holidays, removal of the cap on the Accumulated Leave Reserve Account and a provision for vacation cash-out option after 25 years of service.

• Worked for full death-benefits at age 55 (previously was 60 years of age).

• Advocated for removal of the 5-year vesting requirement for the Wisconsin Retirement System.

• Initiated action that resulted in the restoration of a lost half-day holiday.

• Pushed for sick-leave conversion credit.

ASPRO, the Academic Staff Professionals Representation Organization, lobbies on issues that benefit all academic staff regardless of title, funding source, appointment type, pay level, or campus.