Re: [DHU] Illinois Grad Students win 2-Day Strike: Let's Unionize ALL Manoa Graduate Students!

[Sharain Naylor]

Well, we just have to change the law in Hawaii first. Graduate
students cannot unionize legally. Good luck with GSO, too. As the GSO
representative for the political science department, I encourage you to
talk with your representative. And if you have some time, come to a
GSO meeting. As for attracting high caliber GAs, well, we already have
quite a few. Let's not only support them further, but also demand not
only a return of lost GA positions, but an increase in GA positions,
rather than a reinstallment or increase in the cheaper lectureships
that have already been cut thus far.

Sharain
Khuyen Phan wrote:
>
> damn good idea ! i would pay 50 per semester if the union can get me
more money.
> the university should increase ga salary to attract high caliber ga
who will produce
> smashing reasearch work.
>
> who is the head of the union ?? i vote for hannah !!!
>
> kimosabe
>
>
>
>
> Hannah Miyamoto wrote:
> > Fellow students: This is what our GSO representative should be
doing: Pushing to unionize ALL graduate students, since all our
eligible for a G.A, and no one else is. If all graduate students paid
$10 per semester for union dues, a UHM grad student union would have
over $120,000 a year to use to defend and improve our position. Just
suggesting a union will shake President Greenwood to the core.
> >
> > Read to the bottom, and you can see that Univ. of Illinois unionized
grad assistants get a better deal than we do, plus they don't live in
the third most-expensive city in America.
> >
> >
> >
> >
http://labornotes.org/2009/11/university-illinois-caves-after-two-day-grad-strike
> >
> > University of Illinois Caves After Two-Day Grad Strike
> > Peter Campbell
> > | November 19, 2009
> > Graduate employees wrapped up a two-day strike at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign after the university agreed to the union's
key demands. Strikers said it shows that assertive unions can turn back
the erosion of conditions on campus. Photo:Ben Seese.
> > Graduate employees wrapped up a two-day strike Tuesday at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign after the university agreed
to guarantee tuition waivers.
> > After nearly seven months of negotiations, the administration had
offered language that would protect tuition waivers only for in-state
students—a minority of the 2,600-person bargaining unit. The Graduate
Employees Organization (GEO-Illinois Federation of Teachers Local 6300)
struck to receive protection for all waivers.
> > The union argued that revoking or reducing tuition waivers for
teaching assistants was like asking them to pay to work, and that
tuition waivers are central to the land-grant mission of the University
of Illinois, which includes providing higher education regardless of
economic background...
> > Teaching and graduate assistants were called to withhold all
teaching-related labor, and four major buildings on the Liberal Arts
and Sciences quad were targeted for picket lines.
> > The weather did not cooperate—it was rainy and miserable—but more
than 1,000 GEO members turned out to picket lines, shutting down
hundreds of classes.
> > They enjoyed an outpouring of support from other members of the
campus community and from faculty, students, and labor activists around
the country.
> > The strike began Monday with a 7:45 a.m. rally during which Kerry
Pimblott, GEO’s lead negotiator, incited members to “shut this
university down.” Hundreds of course sections were suspended, including
dozens taught by faculty members who refused to cross GEO pickets. The
lines were animated throughout the day, with members and supporters
grooving to the beat of the GEO’s mobile drum corps.
> > The day ended with a march on the Swanlund Administration Building,
where GEO member Rich Potter told the crowd that, despite the
administration's claim that there was no disruption on campus, “it will
never be business as usual at the University of Illinois until our
tuition waivers are guaranteed.”
> > Some international graduate students, however, were made fearful of
participating in the strike. Amber Cooper, a volunteer from the
University of Michigan GEO, received a phone call from an international
student who’d been threatened with deportation. Other international
students came to the GEO office after receiving similar threats.
> > In addition to winning protection for tuition waivers through the
strike, GEO secured an additional two weeks of unpaid parental leave
and increases to the university’s contribution to health care premiums,
upped from 50 percent to 75 percent in the third and final year of the
contract.
> > “After seven months of negotiations and organizing, to be able to
reach this agreement is an enormous feeling of satisfaction,” Potter
said.
> > The deal also included raises to the minimum salary that total 10
percent over three years. Minimum annual salaries for half-time
assistants are $13,430 currently, and the union says 58 percent of
members make less than its living-wage estimate, $16,000...
> > The strike put enormous pressure on the administration, and had a
major effect in the bargaining room. On day two, with hundreds of GEO
members braving even worse weather to continue to picket the quad, the
administration’s bargaining team agreed to GEO's proposal on tuition
waiver security almost immediately in a morning bargaining session.
> > “Our strike was about telling the university that it could not
continually cut wages or tuition waivers, or allow the quality of
education to erode, without a fight,” said Leighton Christiansen, a
graduate student in Library and Information Science and GEO strike
committee member. “Our victory will serve as inspiration for other
groups of education workers across the country, such as the strikers in
the University of California system who went out today. We can fight
the quality erosion, cost cutting, fee increases, class-size increases,
and we can win.”
> >
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------------------------------

Sharain S Naylor
PhD Student, Political Science
University of Hawai'i, Manoa
2424 Maile Way Saunders 627
Honolulu, Hawai'i 96822
w. 808-956-8141
c. 808-457-7021

[Hannah Miyamoto]

  Thanks to everyone for their support and encouragement.  Please join the new Facebook group that has been created to discuss and organize a movement to persuade the state legislature to change the law: Hawai'i Union of Graduate Educators (HUGE):

 

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=206418058383

 

  It has been suggested that the union must include lecturers, although--since the potential employee pool for lecturers is indefinite--their claims for collective bargaining rights will obviously depend on graduate students demanding them. On the other hand, improving the condition of grad students likely depends on also raising salaries for lecturers.

  Of course, better conditions for grad students depends on some combination of increasing UH funding and right-sizing the Administration.

 

Hananh Miyamoto

Graduate Studies, Sociology