Tuesday, 5/13/97 Support equality with SAGE strike LABOR: Local,
state-wide employee unions join together for solidarity
By Jasamin Rostam-Kolayi Since 1993, Student Association of
Graduate Employees (SAGE/UAW) members have been seeking collective
bargaining rights for teaching assistants, research assistants,
readers, and tutors at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Last fall Judge Tamm, a Public Employees Relations Board (PERB)
judge, ruled that teaching assistants, readers, and tutors have the
right to bargain collectively under state law. The UCLA
administration is now spending millions of dollars of public money
in legal costs appealing that decision. In the face of the
administration’s continued intransigence and refusal to grant the
union recognition, SAGE/UAW members voted last fall to strike again
in the spring. Now, in coordination with four other sister-unions
in the University of California system, SAGE/UAW has devised a new
strategy to gain us recognition and campus and community support.
In addition to signature-gathering and outreach to undergraduates,
delegations to administrators, including on-going outreach with
incoming chancellor Albert Carnesale, and support from other
academic student employee unions, both local and state-wide, TAs,
readers, and tutors at UCLA will be on strike May 21-23. The key
point in this strategy is that this strike will be a UC-wide
five-campus effort. Strikes last week and the week before at UC San
Diego and UC Berkeley respectively took place. Academic student
employees at UC Santa Cruz announced their strike for May 14 and
15, and UC Santa Barbara will meet at the end of this month to
conduct a strike vote. A UC-wide union coalition, which represents
more than 10,000 TAs, RAs, readers, and tutors across the state,
has successfully united and will act collectively to follow up the
legal victory with a strike campaign. Why should we stay off campus
and observe the strike from Wednesday, May 21 to Friday, May 23 ?
There are a number of good reasons. 1) Democratization of the
workplace. One of SAGE/UAW’s main concerns is the right to
collective bargaining, which would ensure a change in the balance
of power and give employees a say in decisions that impact them.
This means recognizing that employees have a right to negotiate a
contract with their employer. 2) Pay equity and the reintroduction
of equal pay adjustments for inflation for all academic employees –
TAs, readers, tutors, as well as faculty. Many academic student
employees experienced nearly a 15 percent real-dollar pay decrease
from 1991 to 1996. 3) Health care. Tutors receive no health
benefits at all, while other academic student employees lack dental
and optical care, low-cost coverage for domestic partners and
families, and coverage for reproductive and sexual health services.
4) Workload. Issues concerning workload are of major concern to
particular departments, especially those who face a 90 or 100:1
student to TA ratio. 5) Grievance procedure. Currently, the
administration possesses the privilege of final say on any
grievance filed. A grievance procedure that will guarantee fair
treatment of academic student employees is essential to
democratization of the workplace. While some departments on campus
have attempted to address some of these issues, "rich,"
well-meaning departments have no control over a fair grievance
procedure, fee waivers, adequate and affordable health care, and
fair cost-of-living adjustments. These concerns can only be
addressed when the union is recognized, i.e. when employees are
able to sit down at the bargaining table to negotiate a contract as
equals to employers. These are the concerns academic student
employees at UCLA have voiced over the past four years and more.
But, that does not address the issue of "why a strike?". Strikes
have traditionally played a key role in mobilizing and winning
academic student employees rights to collective bargaining. At
Berkeley, our fellow-union AGSE/UAW won an "interim agreement" to
bargain collectively from 1989 to 1992 after going on strike for
two days and threatening to do so again. Strikes proved crucial in
winning recognition for other academic student employee unions on
the campuses of the State University of New York, the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, the University of Michigan, and the
University of Wisconsin. Despite unfavorable laws and legal
rulings, these unions won recognition. Striking also resulted in
more active membership, campus and community support, and better
contracts for these academic student employee unions. The SAGE/UAW
strike last fall, while it did not win us recognition, did raise
our visibility and support amongst undergraduates and faculty and
mobilized a majority of TAs, readers, and tutors. It also led to
the current UC-wide campaign. Striking has worked for other unions,
and we need to acknowledge and learn from that. We can no longer
sit and wait for a judge to grant us our rights. Collective action
must follow so that the administration and the incoming chancellor,
Albert Carnesale, sees that recognizing SAGE/UAW is a reasonable,
democratic, and fair action. We, the membership of SAGE/UAW, hope
that you join us in this effort to democratize the workplace and
guarantee the quality of public education in the process.
Rostam-Kolayi is a graduate student in the department of history.
KRIS FALLON Graduate students protest the administration’s refusal
to recognize the Student Association of Graduate Employees on Bruin
Walk in November. Previous Daily Bruin stories SAGE to vote for
support of two day strike, March 2, 1995