Thursday, April 11, 1996
Sunday convention addresses workers’ ability to unionizeBy Mark
Quigley
This Sunday, something remarkable is going to happen at UCLA.
Often, universities are considered "ivory towers," where the almost
sacred work of research, teaching and thinking can go on unimpeded
and unstained by the hustle and bustle of the hoi polloi. The
underlying falsity and elitism of such a view of the university,
however, should become evident this weekend.
The UC-wide convention of academic student employees that is
being sponsored this Sunday by the Students Association of Graduate
Employees/United Auto Workers (SAGE/UAW) will begin to crack the
illusory isolation of the campus from the real world of Los
Angeles.
Education takes work. It takes the work of professors and
graduate students, support staff and librarians, janitors and food
service workers, gardeners and deans, tutors and vice chancellors,
just to name a few. To pretend that education and research just
magically occur, that teaching methods and scholarly breakthroughs
spring fully-formed from heads around campus, is ridiculous and
disrespectful to the people whose labor makes the university
work.
Obviously, the garbage in our trash cans doesn’t just disappear
overnight. The broken pipes and blown-out bulbs do not fix
themselves. Everybody realizes that workers perform these tasks and
keep the university up and running. It is considered a historic
right for such workers to form a union and collectively bargain if
they choose. Yet, for some reason, not everyone on campus sees this
right as available to another very important group of workers
 academic student employees.
Some people seem to think that the work these employees do is
not really work. Some view teaching, research, grading and tutoring
as some sort of ethereal intellectual activity that these employees
lovingly perform, and then they receive an honorarium. Let me BREAK
IT DOWN for you!
Writing syllabi takes work. Reading the texts your students are
studying takes work. Composing lesson plans takes work. Leading
class takes work. Writing paper topics takes work. Writing exams
takes work. Reading and grading exams takes work. Reading and
commenting on written assignments and labs takes work. Meeting
students in office hours takes work. Administering exams (regularly
scheduled and make-up) takes work. Calculating grades takes work.
Writing letters of recommendation takes work. Figuring out how to
present material in a tutorial session takes work.
While I enjoy my work and prefer it to other jobs I might have,
I don’t do it for the sheer ecstasy of the experience. I do it
because it’s my job. Not only am I a worker, but I am an adult who,
along with 3,700 of my peers, has chosen to have SAGE/UAW represent
me in collective bargaining with my employer. This decision needs
to be respected. Yet, Chancellor Young and his ilk continue to tell
me that I’m not really a worker and thus do not have the right to
collective bargaining.
In response to this, hundreds of academic student employees will
come together this Sunday in Ackerman Grand Ballroom at 10:30 a.m.
to discuss how to get the University of California to recognize
academic student employees as workers. Prominent elected officials
such as Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Lt. Gov. Gray Davis will
speak, as will representatives of Thai and Latino garment
workers.
Then, members of Justice for Janitors and the Hotel and
Restaurant Employees will join undergrads, faculty, academic
student employees and other members of the community to demonstrate
outside Chancellor Young’s privileged, gated enclave.
Together, these minimum wage workers and public officials will
raise their voices and put their personal liberty at risk for the
right of university student employees to have a fair say in their
workplace. Why would they do such a thing? The answer is simple: In
protesting, they demonstrate the depth of their beliefs in academic
student employees’ rights to unionize. They see academic student
employees as workers and are willing to put themselves on the
line.
In the face of such moving dedication, can other members of the
UCLA community continue to suggest, in good conscience, that we are
not really workers?
Sunday is only a few days away. What are you going to do? Are
you going to take a stand for one of the basic democratic rights of
our society? Or are you going to be too busy? If you believe in the
public part of public education and want the university to work for
all of the members of its community, then you should come out and
take a stand! Come to the convention. Get on a bus and make your
voice count!
Quigley is a graduate student in English and a teaching
associate.
It is considered a historic right for … workers to form a
union and collectively bargain if they choose.