After years of trying, it is likely UW System employees will be allowed to form unions under the next state budget, but it won’t come for free.

UW System officials estimated that they would need to hire 32 staffers at a cost of $2.2 million annually to negotiate and administer collective bargaining agreements for UW faculty and academic staff, according to a May report  by the state’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

The estimate includes an assumption that there would be 30 separate collective bargaining units across the UW System for some 20,000 employees.

The Fiscal Bureau came up with a slightly more conservative estimate of about 19 positions that would cost roughly $895,000 in state funds and $400,000 in program revenue for 2010-2011.

But because it’s still unknown how many collective bargaining units will form, it’s not clear how many staffers will be necessary, according to the report.

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