Misinformation spread by SAGE speaks poorly for organization

Thursday, May 7, 1998

Misinformation spread by SAGE speaks poorly for organization

SUPPORT: GSA president tries to clarify contentious issues
between grad student groups

By Andrew Jon Westall

I find it extremely disturbing when people attack the
institutions that support them, advocate for them and deal with the
issues that are important to them. This is where the current
mudslinging by the Student Association of Graduate Employees and
United Auto Workers (SAGE/UAW) has taken the student body, through
mis-information, ill-guided slander and outright lies about the
Graduate Students Association.

While I have always encouraged healthy debate and deliberation
among the members of GSA, I will not let a registered student
organization such as SAGE undermine the credibility and dignity of
student government at UCLA. I would like to take this opportunity
to tell the truth about all that has happened between SAGE and GSA,
something the SAGE leadership chooses not to do in editorials or
their own newsletter.

The "Graduate Labor Issues" survey, the issue of contention
between GSA and SAGE, was developed and authored by Vice
President-Internal Lance Menthe. This survey was initially
introduced as a neutral and unbiased survey to be utilized by GSA
so that we could take a stance on several issues concerning
students. Beyond the decisions of the GSA Forum, GSA members
gathered approximately 250 signatures to place the poll on the GSA
annual election ballot. What could be more democratic than the
expressed will of the people? Is SAGE saying that members of the
GSA cannot petition for issues to be placed on the ballot?

SAGE also contends that "the intent of such a poll can only be
to subvert the democratic process." What is more democratic than an
election? The most democratic of processes is the electoral
process, and this survey allows every graduate and professional
student at UCLA to voice their opinion. To say that we should not
allow them to voice their opinion on labor issues and unionization
is immoral, unethical, corrupt, undemocratic and
obstructionist.

SAGE would like the student body to believe that GSA is a puppet
of the administration and that GSA is cohorting with them to
undermine unionization at UCLA. If this is true, explain this one:
the Graduate Division, at the request of the chancellor, called me
on the night of the emergency Forum meeting stating, "We received a
letter from UAW and want to know what’s going on with some poll
you’re conducting." Unfortunately for SAGE, neither the Graduate
Division, the chancellor nor anybody else in Murphy Hall had a clue
as to what GSA was up to. While it has been pointed out that the
Graduate Division helped pay for the ballot information pamphlet
that was mailed to all graduate and professional students, this
money, as well as any other monies, were secured before the Forum
decided to put the survey on the ballot the first time.

I even told the Forum about the $3,500 that night, when they
first placed the survey on the ballot. In an unfortunate
circumstance, the Graduate Division refused to give GSA $10,000
which had been promised for the May 1997 Pan African Visions Film
Festival, a subsidiary of Melnitz Movies. The festival’s program
had changed, and the Graduate Division changed its mind to fund it.
The GSA had already incurred the $10,000 in expenses and that money
had to come out of the GSA Central Office budget.

The Graduate Division recognized the financial instability of
GSA and decided to fund any current programming needs GSA might
have. Because of GSA’s financial difficulty, the only programming
we had coming up was the elections. In order to justify an
expenditure, I cooked up the idea to send a ballot information
pamphlet to every student in order to increase participation. Some
cohorting!

While SAGE also contends that university lawyers helped GSA to
craft this survey, the fact is we went to our lawyers, the general
counsel of the Regents, two days after SAGE spoke to the GSA
officers about their problems with the survey and how they would
bribe us to take it off. (I believe the statement was, "If you take
the survey off the ballot, we will make sure to turn out votes in
favor of the mandatory fee increase.") We were most concerned about
legal liability and whether or not we were in violation of
California Labor Law. Our lawyers contended that we were not. I
find it ironic that this happens to be the same legal team fighting
unionization, but you cannot expect student government to retain
independent counsel on extremely limited resources. We’re not the
ones with full-time lawyers, union organizers and others at our
beck and call.

It has also been purported by SAGE that "the GSA constitution
and the GSA’s own by-laws provide no authorization for placing such
a poll on the GSA ballot." While the GSA constitution and codes do
not explicitly lay out a process to place surveys on the GSA
ballot, the GSA Elections Board found (voting 4-2 in favor) that
such a process had been introduced by precedent. In essence, this
means that surveys had been placed on the ballot in the past by the
GSA Forum under the specific legislation-enabling clause of the
codes (4.2.1). This was interpreted to allow surveys under the same
provisions given by the constitution (Article VII, Section D) for
non-constitutional initiatives and referenda by petition.

SAGE also believes that the petition did not meet a two-week
deadline expressed in the constitution, but the GSA Elections Board
(voting 4-2 in favor) felt that the deadline of April 24 at 5 p.m.
had been met by the petitioners. Although the GSA constitution
constrains the GSA to place valid petitions on the ballot that have
been turned in two weeks prior to the election, it doesn’t stop the
GSA from setting a deadline at a later time, which was approved by
the GSA Forum.

Another contention by SAGE is that "GSA cannot guarantee
confidentiality in the electoral process." The GSA can and does
guarantee confidentiality in the electoral process. The web voting
is confidential! Eleven polling stations were available on
Wednesday and today. Any fraud or other tampering in the electoral
process is subject to the wrath of the GSA Elections Board, Forum
and Judicial Review Board.

One last misconception spread by SAGE is that the poll and
wording of the survey is illegal under California labor law. While
polling is illegal for the employer or the union during this
so-called "laboratory period," the GSA is conducting a poll of all
graduate and professional students, only 27 percent of whom would
be in the union at any one time. The population being surveyed is
much larger and does not include undergraduates who could become a
part of the union.

It must be pointed out that GSA has been involved in this
process independent of the university. The survey is for the
benefit of the Graduate Students Association, its leaders and
members. The issue here is not whether unionization is good or bad
– that is for you to decide (as much as SAGE hates to admit it).
The issue here is not to question the motives of the United Auto
Workers and why they want to unionize academic student employees
(although you should think about that one really hard).

The issue here is whether or not GSA has maintained its
processes and procedures throughout this debacle. My answer as the
leader of GSA is an emphatic Yes. If the GSA has followed its
processes and procedures, then GSA has maintained its credibility
and integrity as the voice of all graduate and professional
students.

What must be carefully scrutinized is the lack of credibility
and integrity on the part of SAGE/UAW during the current debate.
Just because SAGE didn’t get what they want, they’re pissed and are
resorting to character defamation, campaigns of misinformation and
outright lying.. I will always respect the procedures and processes
outlined by the GSA constitution and code. I must retain the
dignity and respect of every graduate and professional student on
this campus in order to maintain credibility for the Graduate
Students Association. Unfortunately SAGE has the luxury of not
doing the same.

The thing that pisses them off the most: If GSA is doing its
job, then students do not need SAGE. The truth hurts.