Grad students protest for union

Grad students protest for union

Chancellor refuses to acknowledge SAGE, meets with
protesters

By Alisa Ulferts

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Blowing whistles, tooting horns and banging on garbage cans
proved effective for graduate student protesters Monday who got
what they came for ­ a meeting with Chancellor Charles
Young.

About 30 members of the Student Association of Graduate
Employees (SAGE) staged a protest outside Murphy Hall while a
delegation sat in Young’s office, vowing not to leave until the
chancellor agreed to meet with them.

SAGE members said they were seeking Young’s recognition of the
association as the bargaining representative of graduate
employees.

"He’ll recognize us whether he wants to or not," Sage
representative Mike Miller told the whistle-blowing picketers.
Miller added that Young had refused three earlier requests to meet
with SAGE.

"We haven’t had a raise in four years," said Colette Brown, a
teaching assistant in women’s studies. Brown added that having
representation would give graduate students a voice in negotiating
the terms of their employment.

Young now has the option of recognizing SAGE voluntarily, which
he has refused to do, according to SAGE members. Graduate student
associations at other UC campuses are also seeking recognition from
their chancellors.

"UC refuses to grant recognition. It’s hiding behind legal
fictions and obstructions," SAGE representatives said in a
statement released at the protest. "Worse still, Chancellor Young
has refused to meet with SAGE or even provide his own position
about recognition," the statement continued.

Graduate student instructors said Young agreed to meet with
representatives from the graduate student association, providing
the protesters ceased their demonstration.

"The chancellor told the planning committee that he was meeting
with them as a courtesy because they are students," said Stanley
McKnight, assistant vice chancellor for human resources.

McKnight said the meeting did not mean that Young recognized
SAGE as a union.

"The university does not want to replace the election process,"
McKnight said. If UCLA recognized SAGE as a union, graduate
students would lose the right to elect union representation, he
said.

Miller said that while he was encouraged by the chancellor’s
agreement to meet with SAGE, very little was actually accomplished
in the meeting.

"He basically said that the university’s position is, was and
always will be that RAs (researh assistants) and TAs are not
employees," Miller said.

Young could not be reached for comment.

University representatives said UCLA has taken the position that
it is legally prohibited from recognizing graduate student
instructors as employees, a position disputed by several law
professors.

"While PERB (Public Employee Relations Board) and the Courts
have held that graduate student instructors and researchers are not
covered by the protections of (a union), there is no legal
prohibition against entering into such an agreement," wrote UCLA
law Professor Craig Becker to UC President Jack Peltason in a Nov.
17, 1992 letter.