The collection documents the origin and early history of the Teaching Assistants Association. It provides significant, though not extensive, information on the student movement at Wisconsin during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and offers some insight into the reasons college teachers organize and the manner in which their unions and professional associations have evolved.

The records span the years 1966-1976, but concentrate on the period 1968-1972. Particularly well covered are the Association's transformation from a graduate student organization into a labor union and its formative 1970 strike. There is also extensive information on the collective bargaining process and on the formation of policy within the union.

The collection consists of historical sketches, a constitution and by-laws, minutes, general correspondence, printed material, committee records, files of several departmental affiliates, university-wide and departmental bargaining records, and a subject file. Notably absent are financial records and membership rosters.

The MINUTES provide the most comprehensive record of the Association's activities, document basic policies and practices, and reveal the ideological aims and economic concerns of the union and its members.

The chronologically-arranged GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, 1966-1971, is incomplete and often routine. It contains letters between TAA leaders and University administrators, faculty members, University regents, and state legislators. However, there is no correspondence with individual members or with other labor organizations. Of particular interest is a letter from Paul Booth describing the current state of faculty unionization and assessing the relative merits of the national teachers' unions.

The newsletters filed in the PRINTED MATERIAL series are virtually complete through 1972, but are increasingly fragmented thereafter. They include meeting agenda and summaries which supplement the minutes, and provide details unavailable elsewhere on the Association's participation in the student, antiwar, and labor movements.

The COMMITTEE RECORDS series contains material from only a few of the many TAA standing and temporary committees. While the Education Committee records, 1969-1974, provide significant documentation of the organization's early attempts at educational reform, the fragmentary Grievance Committee records, 1970-1971, provide only a limited view of employment conditions and alleged contract violations. The Publicity Committee records, 1967-1975, contain notes for speeches and skits, drafts of leaflets and statements, an important report on the public relations function of the union, and a large number of TAA and University of Wisconsin press releases. (Bargaining Committee records are filed as “Working Papers” in the University-Wide Bargaining Series.)

DEPARTMENTAL AFFILIATES are TAA subgroups formed around academic departments. They were created to give members an opportunity to raise and discuss departmental issues with other TAs in similar circumstances. Preserved here are the 1971-1972 records of twelve affiliates. They include correspondence, minutes, job descriptions, work rules, and miscellaneous near-print material.

Records pertaining to contract negotiations comprise one-third of the collection and are divided into two series: UNIVERSITY-WIDE BARGAINING, 1969-1976, and DEPARTMENTAL BARGAINING, 1969-1970. This division reflects the two-level bargaining structure established in a 1969 agreement between the Association and the University. Material in the first series includes contracts, TAA and University of Wisconsin bargaining proposals, working papers of the Bargaining Committee, and detailed notes compiled by the chief TAA negotiator. These notes contain substantial information on the union's negotiating strategy and often include verbatim minutes of bargaining sessions. While much of the material in this series is related to economic and work-performance issues, there is also significant information on the union's disputatious educational planning proposal.

The departmental bargaining records document negotiations between departmental affiliates and those academic departments in which the TAA won a majority in the 1969 bargaining agent election. The records are arranged alphabetically by department and generally include proposals, bargaining notes, faculty memoranda, and preliminary and final contracts.

Researchers interested in the collective bargaining process should also examine the “Salary Research” and “Strategy and Tactics“Strategy and Tactics” folders in the Subject File.

The alphabetically-arranged SUBJECT FILE, 1968-1976, includes newspaper clippings, several influential faculty reports on the TA system; a small amount of material on the state and national teachers' federations; and considerable information on organizing campaigns, picketing procedures, salary levels and employment conditions. Particularly significant are the “Strategy and Tactics” and “Working Papers” folders which contain valuable critiques of the history, function, and direction of the union.