On Tuesday, December 13, members of Graduate Students United at the University of Chicago rallied outside of the regional offices of the National Labor Relations Board in Chicago to demand the recognition of their essential work and to deliver the 2800+ petition signatures gathered in their grassroots Grad Labor Counts! campaign. The campaign aims to have the NLRB rule on a petition filed by the Graduate Student Organizing Committee at New York University which would give back to graduate employees at private universities the right to collectively bargain.

The actions of GSU members are bringing much needed attention to a class of workers who saw their right to organize and collectively bargain stripped away in 2004. GSU Organizing Committee member Andrew Yale penned a forceful commentary last week for the Chronicle of Higher Education and recently appeared on The Rick Smith Show, a progressive radio talk show broadcasting out of Harrisburg, PA.

Even with all of the attention, the NLRB has yet to act in restoring collective bargaining rights to graduate employees at private institutions. The Grad Labor Counts! campaign will still be collecting petition signatures until December 31. If you haven't signed yet, why not sign now? And then spread the word to your co-workers! Who's labor? Grad labor!

Graduate student research assistants at the University of Michigan are one step closer to holding a union election after the Michigan Employment Relations Commission granted them an expedited hearing before an administrative law judge over the objections of the Michigan Attorney General and the right-wing Mackinac Center . The hearing, expected to occur in early 2012, will determine the employment status of GSRAs. The University of Michigan Board of Regents has already weighed in on the matter, stating that GSRAs are indeed employees who should enjoy the right to form a union if they so choose.

Below is a press statement from the University of Michigan Graduate Employees Organization, which is working to organize GSRAs in Ann Arbor.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Graduate Employees Organization is pleased by today's Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC) decision to order a hearing-expected to takeplace in January 2012--in the case of GEO's election petition for Graduate Student Research Assistants (GSRAs) at the University of Michigan.

"We're gratified that we're going to have the opportunity to prove that the GSRAs are employees with the right to vote," said GEO President Samantha Montgomery, a graduate student in psychology and women's studies.

GEO filed an election petition-with signed membership cards from a majority of GSRAs-in April 2011.

"We just want the right to vote," said Christie Toth, a GSRA in the Sweetland Center for Writing at UM. "It's up to employees whether to form a union."

GEO, an affiliate of AFT Michigan, is the labor union representing approximately 1800 graduate teaching and staff assistants at UM. GEO is the second-oldest graduate employee union in the United States, having won its first contract in 1975.

Nontenure-track faculty at Ferris State University conducted a "grade-in" at the university president's office on Monday, December 12 to publicize their precarious employment status, low pay, and lack of health care.  Hired on a semester-by-semester basis, many of them will lose their jobs next week. Ineligible for unemployment, they will be without an income during the upcoming holidays. Many teaching full-time at the university do not have health insurance.

The event followed an emergency membership meeting of the year-old Ferris Nontenure-Track Faculty Organization (FNTFO). At the meeting, the membership voted to "authorize FNTFO leadership to take job action up to and including stoppage of work starting Dec. 7 until the FNTFO/FSU contract is settled. "FNTFO and FSU have been negotiating a contract for nearly a year. A state-appointed mediator has attended the bargaining sessions for several months, but little progress has been made on three key issues including job security, health benefits and pay rates.

Many of the faculty members who will be losing their jobs have worked at Ferris for decades, but according to the university are only "temporary" employees who are hired and fired each semester. After nearly a month without pay, most faculty members hope Ferris will rehire them Jan. 9, but there are no guarantees of future employment. It was this uncertainty and lack of security in their job status that prompted the faculty members to vote to form a union in the Summer of 2010.
 
"I think offering job security is not a lot to ask," said Jill Jepsen, a 9-month temporary faculty who has been at Ferris for four years.

Job security, health insurance and annual cost-of-living increases are three of the most important things to this group of employees who frequently works year after year without any increases in their modest salaries. About a third of these faculty members, who teach classes on the university's Big Rapids campus, work at an annual rate of less than $25,000 a year. Another third are paid less than $40,000.  The average annual salary offer to 2011 college graduates was $51,171, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers in its Fall 2011 Salary Survey.

"I don't get health benefits from anywhere," said Katherine Wykes, who currently works full-time in the Language and Literature Department. "I could really use health benefits from my place of employment."

Job security is also a big concern for Wykes. "Sometimes I work a full load at Ferris but not always." Next semester, Wykes is scheduled to be rehired, but her salary and course load will be part-time, cutting her wages by more than half. This is normal, Wykes said. "It fluctuates."

Negotiations between the two sides will continue today at 4 PM.

On the heels of a widely publicized confrontation between student protesters and campus security in Davis, the University of California at Riverside released new guidelines for protests on its campus. One would expect, given recent events, that the guidelines would govern how security interacts with peaceful student protesters. On the contrary - these new guidelines place draconian restrictions on student protest and freedom of speech at the Riverside campus. The repressive rules include a requirement that protest plans be reported a month ahead and approved two weeks in advance, censorship of protest flyers and posters by the administration, the presence of a UCR staff person, and restrictions on movement around the campus.

Our nation's colleges and universities are vibrant places precisely because of the exercise of our First Amendment rights that occurs every day on campus. These guidelines are cloaked in the rhetoric of allowing students and members of the Riverside campus community a voice, but will in practice allow that voice only when it's convenient for the administration. Members of the UC-Riverside campus community have posted a petition calling for the immediate withdrawal of the new guidelines. We hope you will take a few moments to sign and add your voice to those standing up for the protection of free speech at Riverside.

In almost 3 weeks, the Grad Labor Counts! petition to the National Labor Relations Board posted by Graduate Students United at the University of Chicago has gained close to 2400 signatures (are you one of them?)! Today, AFT President Randi Weingarten released a statement reiterating the AFT's commitment to securing the collective bargaining rights of graduate employees at private universities and urging the NLRB to issue a ruling stating that this important group of academic workers has the right to form a union. President Weingarten's statement is below.

"Graduate employees at private universities should have the same right as their counterparts at public universities to have a voice in their workplace through collective bargaining."

Statement by Randi Weingarten,President,
American Federation of Teachers,
On Request for NLRB to Grant Union Rights to Private University Grad Employees

Graduate Students United at the University of Chicago, which represents teaching and research assistants at that institution, is gathering signatures on a petition to the National Labor Relations Board, asking for a ruling on the New York University Graduate Student Organizing Committee's petition for collective bargaining rights for graduate employees at the nation's private universities.

WASHINGTON-Graduate employees at private universities should have the same right as their counterparts at public universities to have a voice in their workplace through collective bargaining. Whether they work at a public or private institution, graduate employees are paid for their instructional and research work and should be able to negotiate fair wages, benefits and working conditions. For more than 40 years, graduate assistants at public universities have been recognized as employees at their institutions and, therefore, as eligible for collective bargaining rights, and the law should treat graduate employees at private institutions no differently.

The AFT stands with the graduate employees at the University of Chicago, New York University and other private universities in urging the National Labor Relations Board to recognize the rights of graduate employees to choose to form a union. The AFT has supported the right of graduate assistants at private universities to organize since our 2001 campaign at the University of Pennsylvania.

Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/#!/rweingarten