[PEN-L:782] UC grad student get ready to strike (fwd)

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>From dbacon@xxxxxxx Sat Oct 31 23:24:41 1998
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Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 15:15:07 -0800
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Subject: UC grad student get ready to strike
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UC GRADUATE STUDENTS PREPARE TO STRIKE ALL THE CAMPUSES THIS YEAR
By David Bacon

        BERKELEY, CA  (10/31/98) -- Graduate student employees at the eight
campuses of the University of California received a big morale boost in
early October, when Steven Yokich, president of the United Auto Workers,
announced that the United Auto Workers would pay them strike benefits
should they be forced to walk off their jobs this winter.
        Ricardo Ochoa, president of the Association of Graduate Student
Employees at the UC Berkeley campus, explained that "people were concerned
about losing pay when they're already living close to the line -- teaching
assistants and other grad student employees aren't paid a lot to begin
with.  When we were told we'd have access to the strike fund, it gave us
all more courage and our organizing effort more momentum."
        The announcement should have also given pause to UC administrators,
as it makes a strike much more likely.  Since last May, graduate student
employees on all the eight campuses have taken strike votes.  All of their
associations, which are organized campus by campus, are affiliated with the
UAW.  Over 9000 grad student workers are employed at the university.  With
over half of them participating, the decision to authorize a strike
received 87% support.
        Graduate student employees actually carry a great deal of the
teaching load at the university.  While professors in many courses lecture
to audiences numbering in the hundreds, teaching assistants provide
instruction, hold discussions and answer questions in the smaller sessions
between lectures, as well as grading papers and monitoring student
performance.  In some cases, associates even teach their own courses.
Other graduate student employees include readers and tutors.  Without the
work of all of them collectively, university instruction would basically
stop.
        For years these workers have been trying to get the university to
recognize their associations and bargain a contract, providing better pay
and benefits, and giving the student employees basic workplace rights.  The
university has consistently maintained the position that they are all
students who just earn a little money on the side, and not workers at all.
The university has refused to recognize their associations or bargain,
despite a number of work stoppages on various campuses in years past.
        Student employees won an important legal victory recently, when the
Public Employees Relations Board, which administers the state's Higher
Education Employee Relations Act, held that the 500 grad student workers on
the UC San Diego campus were employees within the meaning of the law.  Last
June, they voted by a 3-1 majority on the campus in favor of representation
by their student employee association.  Then PERB rejected a university
appeal of the balloting, which again claimed that the student employees
weren't covered by the law.  Despite the rejection, the university
nevertheless sent a letter to the union saying that it would bargain for
some of the student workers, but not others.
        In Los Angeles, an administrative law judge has also ruled that
graduate student employees are covered by the act.  UC is appealing this
decision as well.
        University stonewalling convinced the workers that a strike would
likely be necessary to enforce the legal decisions, and make the
administration comply with its responsibility to bargain.  In the past,
graduate student employee strikes have taken place on individual campuses,
and have been unsuccessful.  A more ambitious plan last year for rolling
one-day strikes system wide was also unable to move UC's bosses.  Over the
past year, therefore, on all of the campuses, UAW graduate student employee
organizers have created solid organizations.  Although for legal reasons
they are seeking individual recognition on each campus, this winter's
probable strike action will take place on all campuses simultaneously.
        "Unless the university changes its attitude drastically, this is
going to happen, and it's going to happen this semester," Ochoa says.  "UC
is acting as though the law just doesn't apply to them, and people are
angry at their arrogance.  We've just had enough."

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david bacon - labornet email            david bacon
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--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx