Graduate employees’ union calls for student support

Graduate employees’ union calls for student support

Undergrad government recognizes necessity of respecting workers’
rights

By York Chang

On Feb. 8, the Student Association of Graduate Employees (the
labor union for academic student employees – tutors, readers,
research assistants and teaching assistants) voted to hold a strike
authorization vote meeting on Feb. 29. At this time, the union’s
membership will democratically decide whether a strike in the
spring quarter will help bring about the deserved recognition.

This Undergraduate Students Association Council, like the
previous one, recognizes the pressing need for respect for workers’
and unions’ rights, especially in light of the 1.4 percent pay cut
that academic student employees took this year.

Academic student employees do most of the important work in this
world-renowned research university: Can you imagine South Campus
labs without research assistants and all the grant money their work
generates for the university? Or professors grading 300 or 400
exams every couple of weeks? Or the Academic Advancement Program
without its tutors dedicated to addressing the needs of
underrepresented and low-income students?

Clearly, academic student employees are vital to the
undergraduate educational process. Similarly, all undergraduates
are vital to academic student employees in their unionization
process.

I do not think it overstates the case to say that it is each and
every undergraduate’s responsibility to think about the impact
academic student employees have in his or her everyday life.

And, after weighing union members’ desire to have more
democratic control over their working conditions against their
current "apprenticeships," undergraduates that support the
association – in the event of a strike – should either stay off
campus or join the picket lines. To cross a graduate union picket
line is, in effect, to ignore the demands of our teaching
assistants, research assistants, reader and tutors for better
working conditions and more democracy in their workplace.

These demands arise from the university’s undemocratic and
paternalistic stance towards the workers that make it function: not
only academic student employees, but all academic employees –
librarians, lecturers, faculty.

Not surprisingly, this disregard for democratic participation is
also evident in the UC Regents’ summer decision to abolish
affirmative action and in their proposal to raise student fees
again (a proposal which was ultimately derailed by student protest
and mobilization).

So how do we fight against this arbitrary authority? We organize
and mobilize in the interests of human rights, civil rights and
union rights. Recognition of the union is one of the necessary
steps toward democratizing the university, and all those who are
committed to this goal should wholeheartedly stand behind the
graduate association and whatever actions they deem necessary to
win recognition from Chancellor Young.

If Chancellor Young, especially now that he is retiring, were
truly concerned about the quality of undergraduate education, he
would recognize the union and work to improve the working
conditions of academic student employees, and thereby the learning
conditions of all undergraduates.

With these thoughts in mind, the following student government
resolution was passed: Whereas, the Student Association of Graduate
Employees/United Auto Workers was certified by California’s Public
Employment Relations Board (PERB) in spring 1994 to represent a
majority of TAs, RAs, tutors and readers at UCLA,

Whereas, PERB’s certification gives UCLA Chancellor Charles
Young the legal option to recognize the graduate and auto workers’
union voluntarily as the legal representative of these academic
student employees in collective bargaining and in a grievance
procedure independent of the university,

Whereas, undergraduate students work in the job titles organized
by the graduate and auto workers’ union,

Whereas, the academic student employees of the graduate and auto
workers’ union do a significant share of the teaching and research
that make UCLA a great university,

Whereas, allowing academic student employees an equal say in
determining the conditions of their employment will better the
quality of research and especially teaching at UCLA, an improvement
from which undergraduates gain,

Whereas, the graduate and auto workers’ union demonstrate a firm
commitment to democracy and excellence in the university and
throughout society by its commitment to defend and expand
affirmative action,

And whereas, the refusal promptly to grant the graduate and auto
workers’ union democratic request for voluntary recognition will be
costly to the entire UCLA community, because such refusal may
reasonably result in such disruptions as last year’s two-day
strike,

Let it be resolved that the Undergraduate Student Association
Council urges Chancellor Young to recognize the Student Association
of Graduate Employees and United Auto Workers immediately as the
union for academic student employees at UCLA.

Chang is president of the Undergraduate Students Association
Council.Comments to [email protected]