UNIVERSITY STUDENT WORKERS
Online petition supports labor rights for ASEs
Is it possible to have a job, earn a paycheck, carry out important work for your employer – and still not be considered a "worker"?
Yes, but only in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of George W. Bush’s National Labor Relations Board, where the federal agency that is supposed to protect workers finds every excuse to restrict the right to organize and bargain collectively.
In recent years, teaching assistants, research assistants and other academic student employees (ASEs) at U.S. colleges and universities have found their workloads growing without additional compensation, as the higher education industry cuts costs by trimming full-time faculty.
More than 30,000 ASEs are members of the UAW, mostly at public university systems such as the University of California, California State University, the University of Massachussetts and the University of Washington.
In 2002 teaching and research assistants at New York University (NYU) – members of UAW Local 2110 – became the first-ever academic student employees at a private U.S. university to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement.
But in a partisan 3-2 decision in 2004, Bush NLRB appointees called into question the collective bargaining rights of private sector academic student employees, and NYU administrators refused to negotiate a new agreement.
Organizing campaigns on several college campuses were halted and thousands of ballots cast at Columbia, Brown, Tufts and other schools were impounded and never counted.
University workers are fighting back with a campaign to win federal legislation. A new online petition calls for members of Congress to join in sponsoring the Teaching and Research Collective Bargaining Rights Act, sponsored by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., and Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.
To sign the online petition, go to www.ipetitions.com/petition/TA_rights.