Wednesday, February 11, 1998
Chancellor, state more open to SAGE demands
UNION: Friendlier terms erase TAs’ need to strike for union
recognition
By Barbara Ortutay
Daily Bruin Contributor
Although teaching assistants stopped traffic and testing with
strikes last year, their tactics are now changing, with newfound
support from Sacramento and a kinder, gentler chancellor.
The Student Association of Graduate Employees (SAGE) is still
advocating the employee rights of tutors, readers and teaching
assistants. "Since TAs often work closest with undergraduates, it
seems reasonable that their voice would be useful in making
administrative decisions," said teaching assistant Lars Larson.
As part of last year’s campaign to get the university
administration to recognize SAGE as a union, the group held two
strikes, one in the fall and one in the spring quarter. The group
also held a number of protests – one demonstration, held in front
of Murphy all, involving four TAs grading papers in the middle of
the street. This year, however, there have been no visible attempts
to gain recognition from the administration.
According to Mike Miller, lead organizer of SAGE, things have
gotten quieter for two main reasons. For one, Chancellor Albert
Carnesale has an open and positive attitude toward the issue.
In the past, Chancellor Charles Young strongly opposed SAGE
gaining collective bargaining rights and being recognized as a
union.
"If despite the chancellor’s positive attitude, the university
still doesn’t want to recognize our unions, we are going to have to
escalate the pressure," said Miller.
According to Matthew Granade, a reporter at the Harvard Crimson
last year, Carnesale had a reputation for handling strikes and
union negotiations smoothly while he was Harvard’s provost.
"Considering UCLA’s situation (with SAGE), that may have been a
factor in choosing him," Granade said.
In addition, SAGE has made some powerful friends in Sacramento.
After last year’s spring strike, 40 members of the California State
Senate and State Assembly signed an open letter supporting
legislation that would unionize SAGE, and presented it to UC
President Richard Atkinson.
The legislation called, among other things, for the university
to stop spending public funds on private lawyers to fight SAGE’s
union recognition in courts. The legislation never saw light,
however; Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed it.
With support from the state and an open attitude from the
chancellor, SAGE sees no current need to engage in strikes or
picket lines as it did last year, according to Miller.
Instead, the group is working on a grass-roots campaign to
pressure the university to recognize graduate employees as union
workers. Last quarter, UC Irvine became the final UC to get card
majority (excluding UCSF).
To obtain card majority, TAs, readers and tutors must sign cards
declaring themselves as members of a union and present them to the
Public Employment Relations Board. If the majority of workers sign
the cards, the union is recognized on a state level.
"As far as the state is concerned, we have unions, but the
university still says no," said Miller.
SAGE is not recognized by the university because its members are
regarded as students first, and employees second. By becoming a
union, SAGE members would gain the right to determine conditions of
employment through collective bargaining.
By the end of the quarter, SAGE is planning to further escalate
the campaign, and they will launch a state legislation to urge the
UCs to grant them collective bargaining rights and
unionization.