Wednesday, November 13, 1996
After two and a half years of fighting for university
recognition, SAGE hopes to garner collective bargaining rights by
walking the picket lines.By John Digrado
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Keeping their promise to strike should university administrators
fail to recognize their collective bargaining efforts, the Student
Association of Graduate Employees (SAGE/UAW) will begin a week long
strike next Monday.
For five days, student teaching assistants (TAs), readers,
tutors and research assistants (RAs) may picket main entrances to
campus, protesting the university’s failure to recognize the
organization as a voice representing student academic labor.
The instructors’ absence would mean that many discussion
sections and tutoring appointments could either be canceled or
moved to different locations on or off campus next week, under each
individual instructor’s discretion.
"As we have often emphasized, our grievance is not with
faculty," SAGE executive board members wrote in a letter to UCLA’s
faculty in regards to the strike. "It is with an unyielding
administration that refuses to acknowledge the democratic right of
academic student employees to choose whether they will be
represented by a union."
According to a decision handed down by Public Employee Relations
Board (PERB) Judge James Tamm in September, the university must
either voluntarily recognize SAGE as the collective bargaining unit
for graduate and undergraduate academic student employees, or hold
an election among those employees to decide which organization
would represent their concerns to the university and formally
recognize that group.
Neither has happened. The university, interpreting state
collective bargaining laws as excluding student academic employees,
does not even recognize SAGE’s existence, let alone their power to
collectively bargain on behalf of student employees.
"On many occasions, we’ve tried to explain (to SAGE) why under
California law that graduate students were students before they
were employees," said Robin Fisher, associate dean of the graduate
division and one of the main liaisons between SAGE and the
administration.
"We think that this kind of experience and the opportunities
offered by this experience offer things to their resume and their
overall career. (A student’s) career objective is to be a
professional or a professor," Fisher said.
"No one is a graduate student teaching assistant forever Â
that’s a stage on the way," he added.
Formally addressing Tamm’s decision, the university filed an
appeal with the board earlier this month, explaining their
interpretation of the state law and subsequently justifying their
refusal to recognize the organization.
"My understanding is that (collective bargaining laws are) set
up to try and produce industrial peace," Fisher said. "Public
employee laws are set up to that same purpose."
Fisher said that in order for the university to even begin
considering a collective bargaining representative, the group would
have to be an employee group, not a student group such as SAGE.
The collective bargaining between the administration and SAGE
would also have to "contribute to the value of the university
itself," and would have to conform to the Higher Education
Employer-Employee Relations Act (HEERA), which oversees all
administration-employee relations at the university, he added.
So far, the administration refuses to even speculate on SAGE’s
ability to meet these qualifications.
"We haven’t said, and we won’t comment about SAGE per se. The
issue is the eligibility of those people in those titles for
collective bargaining, and it would be unfair labor judgement for
the university to make an opinion on that matter," Fisher said.
Haggling for recognition over the past two and a half years,
student employees claim that the administration keeps them in
unfavorable working conditions  that they are overworked,
underpaid and underrepresented to the very administrators that
determine their work environment.
Among SAGE’s demands to the university are a lower
student-to-instructor ratio, better pay and benefits and a voice in
the decision-making process.
"If we had a greater say in the process, (the administration)
would have a greater sense of accountability to the student
employees," said Mike Miller, lead organizer for SAGE.
"The point of (the strike) is to tell the university that every
time we do something, we get a little bit stronger," he added,
noting that this strike has much more support from both the faculty
and student body in general than previous walkouts.
Miller took special pains to emphasize that strike organizers’
goal is to have a minimal impact on the educational process, adding
that the strike was slated for eighth week to have as little effect
on undergraduate education as possible, but to still make their
absence known.
If the university does not formally recognize SAGE by 5 p.m. on
Sunday, Nov. 17, the strike will begin at UCLA on Nov. 18. For each
subsequent day, however, similar collective bargaining groups at UC
San Diego and Berkeley will also walk off the job in support of
SAGE’s efforts by Wednesday, Nov. 20 Â possibly canceling
hundreds of classes on at least three UC campuses by the middle of
the week.
Not only has the strike garnered support at other campuses, UCLA
faculty and student governments have openly supported the walkout
as essential to make the students’ voices heard at the
administrative level.
In a statement distributed to all faculty members, the Concerned
Faculty Steering Committee endorsed the strike, recognizing that
the action is one taken against the administration and not against
the faculty mentors that many TAs and RAs work under.
"(We) strongly support SAGE’s position in its attempt to
negotiate with the university; and we recognize that, in the
absence of a good faith response from the UCLA administration, a
strike is a warranted and legitimate response," the committee
wrote.
Not only is the strike an appropriate response, but it also
sends a vital message to the administration about the state of
undergraduate education, undergraduate student government officers
said. As a warm-up to next week’s action, student government
officials and SAGE members held a mock picket at the main entrances
to the campus yesterday to disseminate information about the
strike.
"It’s really quite important (to recognize that) undergraduate
education is linked with SAGE’s fight for recognition from the
university," said Undergraduate Student Council (USAC) President
John Du.
"If our TAs and tutors, who teach us for the majority of our
time at this university, are working in unsatisfactory conditions,
that is going to affect the education we get as undergrads. We are
only helping ourselves when we join with SAGE in their struggle for
recognition."
Hoping to protect those students who choose not to cross the
picket line from missing out on vital information in their classes,
USAC Academic Affairs Commissioner Max Espinoza recommended that
faculty either "not hold class at all, hold class and/or office
hours off campus or after picket line hours, or before or after the
strike."
"By responding this way, you will ensure that students all
remain at the same level, regardless of how they choose to respond
to the strike. No student will have less information than any
other. No student will be disadvantaged because he or she chooses
to follow his or her beliefs and honor the picket line."
Daily Bruin File Photo
SAGE members, pictured protesting at Chancellor Young’s home
last year, will carry out their threat to strike in Fall 1996 next
week.Daily Bruin File Photo
SAGE, who protested Chancellor Young’s unwillingness to
recognize their graduate employee union, will initiate a one week
strike next week in hopes of becoming recognized by the
administration.JUSTIN WARREN/Daily Bruin
Patricia Eastman, executive director of ASUCLA, makes a point
during a meeting earlier this year.