Chancellor’s home proper site for union demonstration
By Daily Bruin Staff
April 22, 1996 9:00 p.m.
Monday, April 22, 1996
Gated community shows difference in living conditionsBy G. Lynn
Svensson
In his letter to The Bruin, Associate Dean Robin Fisher contends
that the Student Association of Graduate Employees/United Auto
Workers protest April 14 at Chancellor Young’s house "improperly
and unfairly personalizes" the issue of whether or not the
association should be recognized by UCLA ("Go status quo," April
18).
However, the site was chosen deliberately because it fairly puts
the issue in the proper context of Chancellor Young’s personal
residence. The site emphasized the opulence of Chancellor Young’s
lifestyle in comparison to that of the academic student employees
to whom he has denied recognition.
Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) has already verified that
SAGE/UAW represents the majority of teaching assistants, research
assistants, readers, tutors and acting instructors. Because of
this, the UCLA administration could begin collective bargaining
with the graduate employees today, yet it chooses not to.
The administration is hiding behind the legal case as if it were
a neutral process in which the administration has not taken a
position about unionization. The university implies that the legal
case is a compulsory process in the recognition of SAGE/UAW. But,
the only reason the legal case has happened is that the
administration has taken an anti-union position.
The university does not want its academic student employees
unionized for the same reason that any anti-union business or
corporation opposes the unionization of its employees: Unions
empower employees. UCLA prefers to keep its academic student
employees in the medieval, ambiguous and powerless position of
"apprentice personnel." As apprentices, student employees stand
alone against the resources of an entire university in any
workplace conflict.
The Students Association of Graduate Employees wants to be
recognized as a union for a variety of reasons. Included in these
are: We want to stand together in solidarity; we want a legal
contract so that our wages, benefits, hours, work conditions and
rights cannot be arbitrarily changed at the university’s whim; we
want to unionize because it is our right; and most importantly, we
want to work in a democratic workplace.
Members took the "noisy" protest to the gates of Chancellor
Young’s gated community because Chancellor Young has the power to
recognize SAGE/UAW at any moment, but refuses to do so. He need not
wait until the legal case is resolved and more resources are gone.
Contrary to Fisher’s claim, it is the university’s behavior that is
inappropriate and unprofessional. Our protest is merely a response
to the UCLA administration’s union busting.
I joined other SAGE members in organizing and participating in
April 14’s UC-wide academic student employees’ convention and
protest, and I stand unrepentant. We will continue to fight for our
right to unionize.
Svensson is a graduate student in the sociology department.
