University Faculties in Wisconsin Screw Themselves Out of Spite

And these people are supposed to be the best and brightest among us?

Several university faculties in Wisconsin have voted overwhelmingly to join the American Federation of Teachers, a move the union says amounts to a backlash against Gov. Scott Walker's bid to strip their collective bargaining powers.

Faculty members at five University of Wisconsin campuses have voted to join the union since they were granted collective bargaining rights in 2009. Three of those votes have come since Walker introduced a landmark budget bill that eroded the unions' bargaining powers and benefits. Though those votes were scheduled before the budget bill was introduced -- and later signed -- AFT representatives said the wide margins of victory show professors are galvanizing in opposition to it. The most recent vote last week at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls campus was 148-16.

"They feel they have the right to have a voice in the workplace and they have a right to have collective bargaining rights, and they want to pursue that," AFT spokeswoman Janet Bass said.

The vote at the River Falls campus followed others at the La Crosse and Stout campuses.

However, the faculties are voting to unionize at a time when the advantages of joining are in question. The Wisconsin law would strip their collective bargaining powers -- state AFT President Bryan Kennedy told The Chronicle of Higher Education employees would instead be allowed to negotiate, only without the clout they once were afforded. He said the union elections themselves would also have to be administered by a neutral third party in accordance with the law.

What morons.