Young meets with SAGE, GSA members
No agreement reached on union recognition, strike still
scheduled
By Kimberly Mackesy
and Betty Song
Representatives of the Student Association of Graduate Employees
(SAGE) met with Chancellor Charles Young on Friday, discussing at
length for the first time issues beyond union recognition.
However, because the debate over recognition has not yet been
resolved, the two-day walkout scheduled for this Wednesday and
Thursday will proceed as planned, union members said.
"The chancellor made no attempts to avoid the walkout," said
Mike Miller, SAGE’s lead organizer and one of the representatives
at the meeting. "We would have liked it if he said ‘I recognize you
and you don’t have to go on strike,’ but he didn’t."
A walkout committee was authorized at a March membership meeting
to call a strike in the event that attempts to negotiate with the
chancellor for union recognition failed. However, the chancellor’s
decision not to meet with union members due to pending legal
hearings, which would determine any legal obligation to recognize
the union, prompted SAGE members to officially call a walkout last
Wednesday.
The closed meeting, initiated by Graduate Student Association
President Tim Beasley, was an opportunity for both sides to air
their grievances and move toward an understanding on a variety of
other issues, participants said. Two representatives from SAGE,
Beasley, Academic Affairs Commissioner John Hajda, Vice Chancellor
of Academic Affairs Claudia Mitchell-Kernan, and Chancellor Young
all attended the meeting.
"I think that a new context emerged with the request from the
GSA president. I think that the timing was, in some ways, an
accident,"said Mitchell-Kernan, speaking on behalf of the
chancellor.
SAGE members also agreed that GSA was a positive mediating
influence.
"We agreed to disagree in an agreeable way," Miller said. He
explained that while Young and union members differ in their
opinions regarding union recognition, this discussion opened up the
possibility of future discussions between graduate students and the
chancellor on other issues such as graduate working conditions.
"Chancellor Young agreed to meet with SAGE to talk about
graduate student employee working conditions as long as it’s not a
question of (union) recognition," said Jee Sun Lee, a member of
SAGE’s walkout committee.
During the meeting, Young reiterated his opinion that collective
bargaining is not appropriate for graduate student employees
because this may change student-faculty relationships, SAGE
representatives said. The union also explained the reasons behind
their position, and the two parties agreed to disagree.
"Up to this point, the way people were disagreeing, they were
not going to have anything constructive happening," said Hajda.
"(The meeting) showed that dialogue could happen along a range of
issues. The chancellor agreed to consult SAGE when issues come
up."
One of the most important functions of the meeting was to open
lines of communication and show that the administration was willing
to listen to the concerns of graduate employees, Mitchell-Kernan
said.
"The chancellor is interested in meeting with graduate students
and having graduate students meet with other academic
administrators to discuss issues affecting graduate student
welfare, working conditions, and so on," Mitchell-Kernan said.