Monday, November 30, 1998
Starting Tuesday TAs will strike, hoping to gain bargaining
rights
SAGE: Protest may last, as UAW financial support will keep
workers going
By Mason Stockstill
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
It’s official.
Confirming weeks of rumors and speculations, the graduate
student union at UCLA announced Sunday that a strike would indeed
begin on Tuesday of this week.
The Student Association of Graduate Employees (SAGE), in
conjunction with similar unions at seven other UC campuses, is
hoping that this year’s strike, the first since 1996, will be more
disruptive than past strikes.
And it just may be. Through their affiliation with the United
Auto Workers (UAW), SAGE has secured strike benefits – payments to
striking workers to help them financially – meaning that this
strike could last a very long time.
"The duration of the strike will certainly be longer than the
strikes that we’ve tried before," said Connie Razza, an organizer
for SAGE.
Meanwhile, UC administrators have continued to reiterate their
position that teaching assistants (TAs) should not be considered
employees because serving as a teaching assistant is integral to
their educational experience.
"We believe that TAs are principally students rather than
employees, and thus are not eligible for collective bargaining,"
said UC president Richard Atkinson in a letter circulated last
Monday.
Furthermore, Atkinson stressed that it was the university’s
position that allowing TAs to bargain collectively could "disrupt
the collegial relationships between students and faculty that are
so critical in graduate work."
SAGE organizers had kept the start date of the strike somewhat
secret until now, largely because they feared that university
administrators would hire replacement workers to take the place of
striking TAs.
Administrators would not say whether replacement workers were an
option being considered.
"I would prefer not to start listing things that we will not
do," said Chancellor Albert Carnesale.
University officials have said that switching to multiple-choice
final exams is being considered as an option to alleviate extra
work on professors as a result of the strike.
SAGE organizers are not encouraging students to skip class
during the strike; rather, they are encouraging students to attend,
and to see what their classes would be like without TAs there.
With reports from Timothy Kudo, Daily Bruin contributor
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