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News :: Miscellaneous |
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U-Mass GEO Unionization Victory! |
Current rating: 0 |
by GEO/UAW Local 2322
(No verified email address) |
05 Oct 2001
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UMass Graduate employees win 2-year struggle to join a union. |
 UMass Graduate employees win 2-year struggle to join a union. |
GEO/UAW wins historic union victory in Continuing Education at UMass
For immediate release. Contact: James A.W. Shaw at (413) 222-3775 or Benjamin Balthaser or Pat Duffy at 545-0705
Amherst, MA (October 3, 2001)--After a two year battle, graduate employees who teach in the Division of Continuing Education will finally vote this semester on whether they want to join the Graduate Employee Organization/United Auto Workers Local 2322 (GEO), according to a ruling by the Massachusetts Labor Relations Commission (MLRC). The ruling came in the midst of a campus-wide organizing drive where graduate students were voting department by department to refuse teaching appointments in the Division until their legal rights were recognized.
"This is one of the most significant victories in GEO's 10-year history," said Benjamin Balthaser, a campaign organizer and graduate student instructor in the English department. "Although we are delighted by the MLRC ruling, this is a campaign we won on the ground. Our union, and the MLRC decision, is the direct result of the hundreds of activists who took part in the campaign over the last two years."
Each year, about 300 courses are taught by graduate students in the DCE. Over 80% of graduate instructors who teach in the DCE signed cards saying they wanted to be part of GEO almost two years ago. Instead of allowing an election at that time, the University sued GEO, taking the case to the MLRC. After spending tens of thousands of dollars on anti-union lawyers, fining and threatening to blacklist union activists, the University was still not successful in stopping the campaign.
The university had contested the union election on the grounds that DCE graduate instructors were casual labor, but the MLRC rejected that argument. Graduate instructors who teach in DCE and during the day do the same work, teach the same courses and many of the same students, and the MLRC recognized that DCE instructors deserve the same union rights as GEO members.
The graduate instructors who are now teaching will democratically decide whether to join GEO/UAW Local 2322. Given the last summer months of intense organizing, GEO members and organizers expect the vote will result in victory.
"The campaign has allowed us to get our message out," said Pat Duffy, a current graduate Continuing Education instructor in the Sociology dept. "Not only are graduate students frustrated over their significantly lower wages in the Division, the union can provide basic safeguards of job security and benefits that allow teachers to worry over what they should be worrying about: their students, their subject." |
See also:
http://www.uaw2322.org
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