The Wisconsin Science Professionals (WSP) negotiating team got the attention of state negotiators with a power point presentation comparing the wages its members make to salaries of their counterparts in other states as well as the private sector.

The data showed that “all of our [job] classifications were well behind the market,” says Olson. Moreover, due to the pay structure, pay compression was an issue. “People with five years of service were making almost as much as people with 25 years,” Olson notes, because automatic pay progression ends after three years.

Management got the message. The new contract, which is retroactive to July 1, 2005, and runs through June 30, 2007, provides all WSP-represented workers a minimum wage increase of 6.5 percent.

In addition, effective June 25, 2006, environmental and natural resource scientists will receive equity adjustments of up to $2.50 an hour based on seniority; and veterinarians, pharmacists and forensic scientists will receive market adjustments, ranging from $5 an hour to 50 cents an hour based on classification and years of service.

“I feel very good for the vast majority of the science professionals,” says Olson. “But I do feel bad that some classifications were left out.”

About 150 of the bargaining unit’s 1,400 scientists didn’t get a market or equity adjustment, including chemists, microbiologists and cyto technologists. “We did get a negotiations note—a written promise—that a salary survey will be done for those classifications between now and the end of this contract, so we will be ready to deal with [their salary shortfalls] at the beginning of the next bargaining,” Olson says.

Gov. Jim Doyle signed the WSP contract during a May 5 signing ceremony at the state Capitol in Madison. Altogether, nine AFT-Wisconsin local contracts were signed that day, including contracts for the Wisconsin State Public Defenders Association; the Professional Employees in Research, Statistics and Analysis; and the Wisconsin Physicians and Dentists Association.

AFT-Wisconsin’s largest state employee local, the Wisconsin Professional Employees Council, has not yet settled its contract. Outstanding issues include language on job security.