Unions beneficial to student workers
I congratulate the organizing efforts of ASUCLA student employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in their drive to unionize (“Student workers move to unionize,” March 12).
Everyone deserves fair treatment and representation on the job, and one of the most effective ways to achieve these ends is through joining a union.
One very good example of the success of a student-worker union is another group of currently unionized University of California students: academic student employees.
All academic student employees, which include teaching assistants, readers and tutors on all 10 UC campuses, are unionized.
Since our first contract was bargained in 2000, academic student employees have achieved 100 percent fee remissions for many employees, guaranteed health care, annual wage increases, raises tied to faculty raises and strong job-security protection.
As individuals, none of us could have ever affected these changes, but together we are strong enough to force the UC to listen to us and recognize our rights as workers.
Dave Auerbach
UCLA graduate student, physics
USAC working to lower cost of readers
In the editorial “Textbooks, course readers are too pricey,” (March 7) the Daily Bruin Editorial Board explained that course readers place an additional burden on students struggling to finance their college education.
The Academic Affairs Commission has been trying to save students money for course materials by working to enable professors to place more of their course materials online and by expanding free printing on campus.
As of last November, the Digital Humanities Lab located by Lu Valle Commons now gives each student, regardless of major, $10 of free printing per quarter.
We are still working on having course readers placed online. This would give access to course readers to students who couldn’t otherwise afford these often-necessary materials.
This will save all students money by allowing them to selectively print the materials they deem necessary while enabling them to simply read everything else online.
The Academic Affairs Commission has made significant strides since the beginning of this year to have course readers placed online.
However, numerous copyright laws have created gigantic roadblocks that have prevented professors from simply placing their entire course readers online.
In advocating for expanding online course-reader content, we have been working with Joseph Vaughan, the Humanities chief information officer, Ruth Sabean from the Faculty Committee on Educational Technology, and Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education Judi Smith.
From these meetings, we have come to understand that this process may require substantive changes on campus, which could include hiring experts in copyright laws.
These experts would work from the libraries to raise awareness of the numerous articles that the school has already purchased. Currently, many professors are unaware of the number of articles they can post online legally.
We hope to work with the administration and professors to clarify these copyrights laws and work within the legal parameters to place as much material online as possible.
Our next step is presenting to the Faculty Committee on Educational Technology on March 16, where we hope to make the committee aware of this pressing issue.
Such an investment would be beneficial for students and professors who have expressed interest in saving students money by placing their course-reader content online.
Brittani Yriarte
Staff member, Academic Affairs Commission
Addar Weintraub
Vice commissioner, Academic Affairs Commission