UW-Madison Teaching Assistants Blast Foxconn Proposal, Organizing for Opposition

'Foxconn has no place in public institution committed to excellence, fairness, and democracy'

Madison, Wisconsin — The University of Wisconsin-Madison teaching assistants' union (TAA) hit the controversial Foxconn research proposal that would outsource decision-making on research to a for-profit corporation.

The TAA statement on Foxconn's proposal comes as the Democratic party nominee for governor, Tony Evers, maintains his silence on whether he would oppose Foxconn and the massive public subsidy, if he were elected.

The TAA statement is communicated in a recent email and is reproduced below.
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TAA Statement on the Foxconn Institute

The Teaching Assistants Association of Madison is gravely concerned by UW-Madison’s recently-announced partnership with the Foxconn Technology Group to establish a new research institute. While we await transparency and further information from UW, we believe that, on its face, this partnership runs counter to UW-Madison’s legacy as a public land-grant university dedicated to excellence in research and public service. As workers, students, educators, researchers, and taxpaying citizens of Wisconsin, we demand transparency and accountability from UW-Madison and the State of Wisconsin concerning its partnerships with the Foxconn Technology Group.

Foxconn’s history of human rights abuses is well-documented. The $100 million that Foxconn plans to donate to UW-Madison was made on the backs of underpaid, exploited workers. As multiple news reports have shown, Foxconn workers are exposed to unsafe working conditions, wage exploitation, and poor living conditions. Since 2010, waves of worker suicides have exposed the despair that characterizes its factories. In addition to employing child workers and overworked student employees, Foxconn has also stifled collective bargaining and intimidated journalists attempting to document working conditions in its factories. Foxconn has no place in a public institution committed to excellence, fairness, and democracy.

Although Chancellor Blank thanked Foxconn for its “generosity to the university,” Foxconn’s “investment” in the State of Wisconsin is extractive of the University and to the State as a whole. The numbers speak for themselves. The Walker administration has already promised over $3 billion in subsidies to Foxconn, diverting much-needed resources from an already faltering UW budget. Since he took office, Scott Walker has cut hundreds of millions of dollars from UW’s budget. Moreover, in order for UW to match Foxconn’s “donation”, which is required by the partnership, existing or new funding will need to be diverted. We need public funding for our public university rather than donations from corporations, whose donations would make UW-Madison beholden to private interests.

Moreover, according to Chancellor Blank, Foxconn and UW-Madison will share the intellectual property rights produced by the research institute, potentially endangering academic freedom as the massive tech firm determines the direction and ends of research conducted at this university. This arrangement also directly threatens our university’s commitment to the Wisconsin Idea. The fruits of research at UW belong to the people of Wisconsin, not to a private corporation.

We demand transparency and accountability from UW and from the State of Wisconsin as a whole. In addition to releasing the legal documents which detail the full terms of agreement for the Foxconn Institute, both UW and the State must commit to holding public town halls so that taxpayers and citizens have a say in how our vital public resources are being used.
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