Date: Mon, 08 Jun 1998 14:37:10 -0400
To: LABOR-RAP@csf.colorado.edu
From: Christopher Rhomberg <christopher.rhomberg@yale.edu>
Subject: UC System-Wide Fall '98 Strike Authorized

news from the graduate student employees at the University of California.

>Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 22:28:59 -0700 (PDT)
>From: rochoa@uclink4.berkeley.edu (Jennifer Colamonico)
>Subject: UC System-Wide Fall '98 Strike Authorized
>
>For immediate release
>
>Academic Student Employees Turn out in Massive Numbers to Authorize
>System-wide Strike at UC
>
>June 4, 1998 -- In balloting that ended Wednesday, members of academic
>student employee unions throughout the University of California voted by an
>87% landslide to authorize a system-wide strike next fall if the
>administration does not recognize the unions and agree to begin collective
>bargaining with teaching assistants, readers and tutors.
>
>More than twice as many academic student employees (ASEs) took part in the
>balloting as in any previous strike authorization.  Some 4,221 members of
>academic student employee unions affiliated with the United Auto Workers
>(UAW) took part in the vote.  There are a total of about 7,500 academic
>student employees on the seven UC campuses where balloting took place.
>
>Votes were held at the Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles,
>Riverside, Irvine and San Diego campuses of the UC.  AGSE/UAW members at UC
>Davis expect to hold a strike authorization vote in the coming months.
>
>Union activists emphasized the strength demonstrated by the large strike
>vote.  "This strike will be much larger and significantly more disruptive
>than any action we have taken before," said Ted Levine, of the Coalition of
>Academic Student Employees (CASE/UAW - Riverside).  "But our demand is the
>same:  recognition of our collective bargaining rights."
>
>The vote authorizes the leadership of each campus union to call a strike
>next fall, if the university administration does not recognize the
>unions, but it does not make a strike inevitable.
>
>"We have exercised great restraint," said Ricardo Ochoa, President of the
>Association of Graduate Student Employees (AGSE/UAW - Berkeley).  "We have
>tried to meet with campus chancellors; over 5000 of our members sent
>letters to state and federal legislatures; we have employed short rolling
>strikes in order to avoid a serious disruption of undergraduate education.
>But the university has so far refused to budge."
>
>The California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) has verified that a
>majority of the 9,000 ASEs on all UC campuses have selected UAW-affiliated
>unions to represent them in collective bargaining.  And PERB has said that
>the University administration may grant recognition to the unions at any
>time.  The UC's denial of collective bargaining rights led to 25 days of
>strikes on 5 UC campuses during the 1996-97 school year.  The University
>administration has engaged in 14 years of litigation at PERB, costing
>millions of taxpayer dollars.
>
>The ASE unions have been winning on the legal front, despite the UC's
>extravagant use of lawyers and public money.  The PERB board, the final
>level of appeal, on April 24 upheld an earlier ruling that teaching
>associates, readers and tutors at UC San Diego are employees and are
>entitled to collective bargaining rights under the Higher Education
>Employer-Employee Relations Act (HEERA).
>
>As a result, PERB ordered an election to take place June 3 and 4 at UC San
>Diego to determine whether the Association of Student Employees (ASE/UAW -
>San Diego) will be certified as the workers' collective bargaining agent.
>
>"The PERB decision was great news," said Anthony Navarette, spokesperson
>for ASE/UAW - San Diego.  "But we have never relied entirely on the legal
>system to guarantee our rights.  We have always concentrated on winning
>recognition by building on the power of our membership with protests,
>letter-writing campaigns, and strikes."
>
>The university administration vindicated the unions' strategy of not
>relying on judicial avenues alone when it announced in a legal filing last
>month that it would refuse to abide by the legally-mandated election if
>ASE/UAW is certified.  The UC San Diego administration said that even if
>academic student employees voted in favor of representation by ASE/UAW, it
>would refuse to bargain collectively, as it would be required to do under
>HEERA.
>
>"The University administration has announced that they will break the law
>in order to keep academic student employees from exercising our rights,"
>said David Kamper, an activist with the Student Association of Graduate
>Employees (SAGE/UAW - Los Angeles).  "But, the University of California
>works because we do.  If the administration continues to refuse to
>recognize us, we'll have to show them what that means."