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UW-Madison Campus Voices: The 1970 TAA Strike
Posted 05/06/2010
MADISON, Wis.- Forty years ago this semester, another chapter in the history of UW-Madison and its student protest movement unfolded. This chapter involved the classic struggle of labor versus management, as well as a generational battle between the groups now called “The Baby Boomers” and “The Greatest Generation.” Simply stated it was the 1970 TAA Strike.
Organized by UW-Madison graduate students in 1966, the Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA) entered into its first bargaining sessions with the University in the summer of 1969 to negotiate TA funding, working conditions, and student roles in educational planning. At the beginning of 1970, these sessions had not produced a mutually desired outcome, and TAA members voted to strike. The strike lasted from March 15 to April 13, 1970, ending that month with the very first contract for student workers at UW-Madison and one of the first in the United States.
The UW-Madison Archives holds detailed information on this strike in paper, visual, and audio formats. In the late 1970s, former UW-Madison oral historian Laura Smail conducted over 30 interviews with graduate students, faculty, and administrators to get their stories, memories, and opinions about this historic labor action.
In this modern, digital era, this rich archival material should be made available to folks in places and in ways they can access them. The campus oral history program, part of the campus archives, has begun this task. Specifically, we have put the full audio and transcripts, in collaboration with the UW Digital Collections Center, of the TAA Strike online. Also, we compiled an iTunesU album of audio clips and created a podcast and mini-movie that tell this story. Presenting this strike has become the first sub-project in what we have coined UW-Madison Campus Voices project.
UW-Madison Campus Voices exists to (re)capture, present, and preserve some of the strongest historical stories and memories of UW-Madison, through the people who lived them. We intend to publish two more sub-projects (Sterling Hall Bombing & Badger Village) during the summer and early fall. We envision more campus sub-projects and perhaps a statewide attempt, working with Wisconsinites both on and off campus to find funding to gather and preserve historical documents and to present stories about those documents to a wider audience.
If interested, please go to the UW-Madison Campus Voices project website. From there one can click to the UWDCC’s presentation of the full audio and transcripts, can listen to the iTunesU album of TAA Strike narrators’ excerpts and our podcast, and can watch the mini-movie. The Brittingham Fund has allowed for the funding to pilot this project, two future web presentations and to hire student staff.
For more information about UW-Madison Campus Voices, please contact Troy Reeves, head of the campus oral history program, at 608-890-1899.
