Friday, December 4, 1998
UC unfairly denies basic rights of TAs
STRIKE: University holds ground against ruling of labor
relations board
By Bel Willem
This quarter, we have prepared lessons, commented on journals,
coached students through difficult texts during section, walked
students through their own logic during office hours, responded to
questions over e-mail, and graded students’ work.
Like every quarter at UCLA since spring 1994, academic student
employees (ASEs) have also sought the UC administration’s
recognition of our basic rights as employees: The right to choose
union representation. In these ways, we have spent this quarter
much like other quarters – practically enacting our commitment to
the quality of undergraduate education.
This quarter, however, has been different from other quarters.
In recent years, a majority of teaching assistants (TAs), readers
and tutors on all eight UC campuses have chosen union
representation. These ASEs entered this school year with an
unprecedented call for recognition. On all of these campuses, we
authorized a simultaneous strike of unmatched magnitude and
duration, if the administration continued to refuse to recognize
our collective bargaining rights.
It has refused.
This strike is about democracy. A majority of TAs, readers and
tutors have chosen the Student Association of Graduate
Employees/UAW (SAGE/UAW) and its sibling unions to represent us.
This means that most ASEs want to have a fair say in determining
the terms and conditions of our labor.
In 1994, the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), the state
agency responsible for labor relations in the University of
California, verified this majority. In most cases, this majority is
enough to gain recognition and begin bargaining. In other words, we
should not have to strike for recognition of our union. The UC
administration, however, has spent millions of taxpayer dollars
hiring private law firms to deny us the basic democratic right to
representation.
Because we work without representation, the administration is
able to make decisions which affect the terms and conditions of our
employment with no accountability to either its employees or its
students.
For instance, a few years ago, the university administration
chose to stop compensating tutors for their preparation time. In
other words, in order to effectively carry out their jobs, tutors
are forced to volunteer many hours attending class, reading, and
analyzing. With union representation, the people who provide your
education most directly would have an institutionalized voice with
which the administration would negotiate changes in working
conditions.
Despite the fact that, in 1996, a PERB judge confirmed that our
rights to collective bargaining are the same as every other public
employee in California, the UC administration has continued to deny
our right to a fair say in the terms and conditions of our
labor.
This conflict also concerns the quality of undergraduate
education. Our working conditions are your learning conditions.
ASEs provide a majority of the intensive educational time in the
UC.
While faculty fulfill their obligations to lower division
courses by lecturing to more than 100 students at a time, tutors
and TAs are responsible for making sure that each student has the
chance to engage the material in class: in section, in tutorials,
in office hours and in writing.
We are on the front lines of your education.
The administration could easily chalk up a win for the
University of California on this one. It can honor both the rights
of its academic student employees and the commitment to high
quality undergraduate education by recognizing the union.
The administration has had plenty of opportunities to do just
that. It could have recognized us after we gained card majority; it
could have recognized us after PERB ruled in favor of our right to
collectively bargain; it could have recognized us in the five
months between the strike vote and today.
Instead, the UC administration is undermining undergraduate
education with scantrons and replacement workers.
Call Chancellor Carnesale and encourage him to choose democracy
and quality education by recognizing SAGE/UAW.
Comments, feedback, problems?
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