{"id":2271,"date":"2017-05-24T17:38:26","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T17:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/columbiagradunion.org\/?p=2271"},"modified":"2017-06-13T17:40:41","modified_gmt":"2017-06-13T17:40:41","slug":"grad-workers-rising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/columbiagradunion.org\/2017\/05\/24\/grad-workers-rising\/","title":{"rendered":"Grad Workers Rising!"},"content":{"rendered":"
As momentum continues to grow in the academic labor movement, GWC-UAW joined graduate workers from across the Northeast in a huge Commencement rally at Yale on Monday<\/a> urging the administration to recognize and bargain with their graduate employees\u2019\u2019 union, Local 33 – UNITE HERE<\/a>, whose election victory has been certified by the regional National Labor Relations Board despite administrative stonewalling.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Thank you to everyone who took the time to make this a successful action! Talking to other grad worker organizers was a powerful reminder that our movement has grown dramatically since we won last August\u2019s landmark National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision, restoring private-university grad workers\u2019 union rights. Just last week, the Boston College Graduate Employees Union \u2013 United Auto Workers (BCGEU-UAW<\/a>) won recognition as workers from the NLRB; they will now work with the board to schedule their union election. \u00a0As well, administrators at several institutions, including Tufts University and American University, have indicated they will respect the results <\/strong>of recent NLRB elections and bargain with graduate worker unions. These are huge steps forward for the academic labor movement!<\/p>\n Meanwhile, however, administrators at some of the nation\u2019s most prestigious universities are scrambling to put legal hurdles in the way of RAs and TAs exercising their legal right to democratic voice through collective bargaining. As you know, Columbia has refused to drop its effort to nullify the results of our overwhelming 1602-623 vote for GWC-UAW Local 2110 as our union, even though the regional NLRB recommended rejecting the administration\u2019s objections \u201cin their entirety.\u201d <\/a>We are hopeful that the national board will soon act to uphold our election and certify our union. Here are some updates from other campaigns across the country:<\/p>\n At the New School, the administration \u2013 even though it now admits graduate workers most likely won their recent NLRB election \u2013 is sticking to its strategy of pre-emptively challenging all ballots, blocking the vote count. Organizers with Student Employees of the New School (SENS-UAW)<\/a> are calling on the university to \u201cFree the Vote – Count The Ballot!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n At the University of Chicago, Graduate Students United<\/a> delivered a majority of authorization cards to the NLRB two weeks ago, seeking their own election. \u00a0According to reports<\/a> from the in-progress board hearings,<\/a> the University\u2019s lawyers – the same firm retained by Columbia – have attacked the Columbia decision, dismissed the idea that RAs create value for the university, and suggested that research assistants should be denied their rights as employees because \u201cmost of their experiments fail.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n\n