Graduate Employee Union YES!: The Case for Collective Bargaining

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.2110uaw.org/gsoc/faculty_information.htm

http://www.2110uaw.org/gsoc/

Please consider giving to the strike fund after reading all the details.

http://www.2110uaw.org/gsoc/donate.htm

WHO WE ARE: GSOC, the Graduate Employee Union at New York University

GSOC (Graduate Student Organizing Committee) is composed of the teaching, research and graduate assistants of the university (except the Sackler Institute). GSOC is part of Local 2110/UAW, a technical, office and professional local union that includes university, museum and publishing workers.

Graduate employee unions like GSOC have existed for over thirty years in the U.S. at public universities, such as the University of Michigan, the University of California, Rutgers University, SUNY, CUNY and many others. More recently, as the use of teaching assistants increased in private universities, graduate employees began unionizing.

At NYU, we began organizing in the late 1990s and in March of 2000, we won an historic decision from the National Labor Relations Board that found that we had a right to form a union as graduate employees under the National Labor Relations Act. We became the first recognized graduate employee union at a private university. Campaigns for union recognition developed at other private universities, including Columbia, Yale, Brown, Tufts and Penn.

back to top

LEGAL ISSUES:

In July 2004, a newly constituted National Labor Relations Board with a majority of Bush Administration appointees reversed the NYU decision in a case involving Brown University teaching assistants. The decision, unlike the earlier unanimous bipartisan NYU decision, was split with the Republican majority voting to reverse and the Democratic appointees dissenting. As a result of this regressive decision, union election ballots at four universities, held unopened by the NLRB for over three years, were discarded without ever being counted.

This reactionary ruling from the Bush Administration does not prevent NYU from voluntarily agreeing to a new contract with GSOC.

back to top

WHY WE NEED A UNION:

Before we began organizing, GSAS stipends were approximately $10,000; in Tisch and Steinhardt, stipends were often half that amount. NYU began implementing some increases, in direct response to our organizing drive - but it was not until we won union recognition that we were able to bargain substantial, legally binding improvements in the terms of graduate employment. Under our contract:

- Minimum stipends increased by 38%, and are now $18,000.
- In departments where graduate assistants were paid above the minimum, GAs received a guaranteed 3.5% increase each year of our contract.
- Before our contract, graduate assistants had to pay their health care premiums; under our contract, NYU must pay the full premium cost for individual health care.
- As a result of our contract, graduate assistants won new and improved benefits, including fully paid tuition and fees, increased child care subsidies, paid sick leave, paid holidays, and paid training.
- Under our contract, graduate assistants can address work overloads, health and safety problems and other unfair situations.

back to top


THE CONTRACTUAL GRIEVANCE PROCEDURE:

NYU claims that "union grievances" are the reason why they are reneging on their collective bargaining responsibilities. But a grievance procedure is a standard and vital part of any union contract, including all of NYU's contracts with other unions. NYU's claims about "bad grievances" are a smoke screen to divert attention from their actual motive - to hide behind a regressive Bush-appointed labor board in order to renege on their collective bargaining responsibilities.

Two weeks ago, we met with NYU representatives Jacob Lew and Terry Nolan. At the meeting, they told us repeatedly that the only issue blocking negotiations was a handful of grievances which the union had filed on behalf of members reappointed to lower paying positions not covered by the contract. We believe these grievances raise legitimate employment concerns, and do not infringe on academic decision-making; nonetheless, we offered to withdraw them on a permanent basis, if they were obstacles to bargaining a second contract. On Thursday, June 16, less than an hour before the university issued a public announcement, NYU's general counsel Terry Nolan contacted us by telephone to tell us that the university rejected our offer, had decided not to negotiate, and that an announcement to that effect would be issued.

At NYU, we have had to file grievances because:

· NYU has refused to resolve even simple problems, like providing us with information about our membership, clearly required by the contract.

· NYU has reclassified graduate assistantships to lower-paid positions not covered by the contract. As a result, NYU graduate students earn half the pay of their unionized colleagues, and lose their health coverage and tuition remission.

GSOC grievances concern employment matters, not academic issues such as fellowships, grades, curriculum or tenure. Among the specific grievances we have sought to remedy are:

* Workload problems.
* Not paying employees for additional work.
* Appointing graduate students performing TA work as "adjuncts" at much lower pay and benefits than they would receive under our contract.
* Graduate employees performing GA work are paid as hourly workers with no benefits and lower pay than they should receive under our contract.
* Not posting available job openings on the web as required by the contract.
* Unsafe and unhealthy work conditions, such as mold, flooding and asbestos.


Mnay of these grievances could have easily been resolved. But often the administration has not even been willing to meet with the Union about them. Instead, we have been forced to request the intervention of an outside neutral arbitrator - an expensive and time-consuming process for both parties. NYU's other unions tell us that they have had similar experiences with the administration.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

1. United we bargain

Devided we beg.