BALLARD BLOCKS. Read all about it
in the latest
edition of the WSLC Legislative Update.
for
May 30-June 1, 2001
UPDATED DAILY M-F by 9 a.m. Pacific -- Links to commercial media are functional at the date of posting. In some cases, links "expire" when sources would like to charge you for old news.
News from previous weeks: May 21-25 -- May 14-18 -- May 7-11
FRIDAY,
June 1 -- Join UW teaching assistants on the
picket line!
— In today's UW Daily -- Strike
still on for today
...and also -- McCormick
takes sour situation, makes lemonade
— In today's Seattle Times -- Wrong
academic tone in UW strike talks (This paper's worldview has taken a
hard right, anti-labor turn since its strike -- see yesterday's call for prevailing
wage repeal. Perhaps its time for readers to write
the Times and remind them Seattle is a UNION town. Your
faithful webmaster did, and here's his letter.)
...and also -- Electrical
workers approve contract
— In today's Seattle P-I -- UW
teaching assistants walk out
...and also -- Federal
appeals court bars timber sales
...and finally -- 50
years of ferry progress: Better coffee, higher fares
— In today's Bellingham Herald -- G-P
can run generators for tissue plant
— In yesterday's Wenatchee World -- BPA:
Now it's up to Alcoa (re: Wenatchee Works)
— In yesterday's Vancouver Columbian -- Matson
figures he'll try again for Baird's seat
— In today's Everett Herald -- Time
for less talk, more action (editorial re: Bush, energy)
— In today's N.Y. Times -- Mr.
Bush's idea of leadership (editorial: "Infrastructure repair to the
parks and cutting energy use in federal buildings are both reasonable steps
that a president would routinely take. But they do not add up to visionary
presidential leadership or serious intellectual engagement with the problems
of citizens.")
THURSDAY,
May 31 -- Rally
at noon Friday with UW TAs on 1st day of strike
— In today's Seattle Times -- UW
fuels strike-related GPA fears
...and also -- Alliance
for Retired Americans launches local chapter
...but then there's -- The
$23.85 flagger holds up new roads (editorial)
— In today's Olympian -- State
warns I-747 foes over memo
...and also -- Restore
health care cuts first (editorial)
— In today's Bellingham Herald -- Lawmakers
must get on the stick (editorial)
— In today's Seattle P-I -- BPA
advantages criticized in report
— In today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch -- Boeing,
IAM reach tentative agreement
— In today's Washington Post -- Countdown
to American Airlines strike begins
...and also -- Poorest
Americans to get no tax rebate, study says
— In today's N.Y. Times -- Bush's
mistake in California (oped by CA Gov. Davis)
...and also -- Market
risks could hurt Social Security safety net (Analysis that
concludes: "Perhaps it makes more sense to return to the original model
of Social Security as a safety net against poverty, with stock market
investments as a separate retirement program, clearly recognized as a risky
investment by all concerned.")
WEDNESDAY,
May 30 -- UW
TAs will strike Friday if no agreement by then
— In today's Olympian -- Locke
says GOP holding back transportation plan (House Transportation
Co-Chairwoman Ruth Fisher, D-Tacoma, said Democrats can't agree to further
contracting out, but that some middle ground may be possible on changing how
the prevailing wage is calculated.)
— In yesterday's Aberdeen Daily World -- Weyco
strikers vote on contract
— In today's Longview Daily News -- Weyco
strikers grumble over offer
— In today's Seattle Times -- Long-term
contracts now BPA's albatross
— In today's News-Tribune -- Northwest
power is in his hands (BPA's Wright)
— In today's Bellingham Herald -- Intalco
deal no boondoggle (editorial)
...and also -- Latino
migrant workers put down roots in N. Central Wash.
— In today's Yakima Herald -- Latest
Eyman initiative is another bad one
— In today's Statesman-Journal -- Federal
aid to Ore. laid-off workers halted
— In today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch -- As
Boeing, IAM resume negotiations, much is on the line
— In today's N.Y. Times -- Bush
plans to prolong trade benefits to China
...and also -- Bad
Heir Day (Krugman column on tax-cut package: "As now written,
heirs to great wealth face the following situation: If your ailing mother
passes away on Dec. 30, 2010, you inherit her estate tax-free. But if
she makes it to Jan. 1, 2011, half the estate will be taxed away.
Maybe they should have called it the Throw Momma From the Train Act of
2001.")
News from previous weeks: May 21-25 -- May 14-18 -- May 7-11
FRIDAY,
JUNE 1
Join UW teaching assistants on the picket
line!
Every union member in the Seattle metropolitan area should make plans to come to the University of Washington campus and walk the picket line with striking teaching assistants. Not just to show solidarity and express your support for their struggle, but for a healthy dose of inspired union activism.
There is contagious enthusiasm and a righteous sense of purpose among these young members of the Graduate Student Employee Action Coalition/United Auto Workers. They are serious, they are well-informed and they are determined to force UW President Richard McCormick and the UW Board of Regents to take their concerns seriously and negotiate a fair contract.
The administration has shown it is willing to force a disruptive strike, and relax academic standards during final exam week in the interim, rather than negotiate a fair and enforceable first contract. McCormick and Co. continue to cling to the latest in a series of excuses of why they shouldn't have to deal with GSEAC/UAW: A legal framework is necessary for real negotiations to continue. But striking TAs are loudly reminding them that state law may not specifically authorize a collective bargaining agreement, but nothing in state law prohibits one either.
About 300 strikers and their supporters gathered at the university entrance on 40th & 15th N.E. at noon Friday for hilarious street theater (starring President Precedent and his flunkee Legal Ramification), words of encouragement from professors, and an update/reality check from a union negotiator at the bargaining table.
Expressions of solidarity came from the following representatives of the labor community: Steve Williamson, Executive Secretary of the King County Labor Council; Kim Cook, Regional Director of Service Employees International Union District 925-1; Paul Bachtel, Executive Board Officer of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 587; Leonard Smith of Teamsters Local 117; and a representative of the Washington Federation of State Employees whose name your webmaster didn't write down. And yes, UW graduate and labor rally staple Robby Stern, WSLC Special Assistant to the President, led the crowd in "Power to the People."
The following is the latest press release from GSEAC/UAW:
The Graduate Student Employee Action Coalition/United Auto Workers (GSEAC/UAW), the Union for 1400 teaching assistants, readers, graders, and tutors at the University of Washington, is on strike beginning today (Friday, June 1).
"The university refuses to agree to a contract that is fully enforceable through neutral third party arbitration," said Clare Newstead, a Teaching Assistant in the Department of Geography and a member of GSEAC/UAW. "They have left us no choice but to strike."
The Union and the University have been negotiating since February. The agreement under which the Union agreed not to strike expired last Monday. GSEAC/UAW members voted 1061 to 100 to authorize their bargaining team to call a strike.
"The University is resisting agreement on issues of top priority to our members, including workload, health benefits, job security, non-discrimination and harassment, binding grievance and arbitration, and recognition of our Union as the exclusive bargaining representative," says bargaining team member David Parsons. "The University has engaged in bad faith bargaining by grossly misrepresenting our bargaining positions on their web site, and in campus-wide emails and letters to parents. It is appalling that they would focus their efforts in this way, rather than working with us to reach a fair contract that can be enforced through neutral third party arbitration."
As teaching assistants, readers, graders, and tutors walk off the job today there will be hundreds of classes without instructors and tens of thousands of papers, exams, and final projects left ungraded.
"A strike will be extremely disruptive to the University," says Evren Damar, teaching assistant in the Economics Department and member of the GSEAC/UAW bargaining team. "We will continue to work with the University towards reaching a mutually acceptable agreement. The administration has to realize that our working conditions are the learning conditions of our undergraduates."
This is the last week of classes at the University of Washington. Finals week begins June 4th.
"The University has provoked this crisis," says Jasmin Weaver, President of the Associated Students of the University of Washington. "We call upon the administration to stop compromising the quality of undergraduate education and agree to the reasonable demands of GSEAC/UAW for a fully arbitrable contract."
FRIDAY,
JUNE 1
An open letter to the editor of the Seattle
Times
Dear Editor:
The insulting condescension of the Times editorial board hits a new low with its June 1 editorial "Wrong academic tone in UW strike talks." Lecturing teaching assistants that they may "regret they threw in their lot" with a union reeks of the same patronizing I-know-what’s-good-for-you management mentality that brought the Times a strike of its own several months ago.
When employees choose to organize a union, they usually do it because they have serious and legitimate grievances with an unresponsive employer. It is a monumental and heroic decision given the toothless, obsolete labor laws supposed to guarantee their right to do so without retribution.
In the case of the graduate student employees at the University of Washington, their decision was especially noteworthy because our state laws still treat them as second-class citizens by denying them, and all other state employees, the right to collective bargaining. (A right enjoyed and often taken for granted by private sector workers, as well as city and county employees.)
The student employees must seek voluntary recognition and voluntary good-faith contract bargaining from the UW administration because lawmakers who share the Times’ anti-labor worldview again this session decided for these workers that they don’t need a union.
The Times hangs its argument on the weak (and suspect) incidental evidence of a provision in the University of California teaching assistants’ union contract that appears to harm members’ interests. In doing so, the Times injects the most notorious of all anti-union rhetoric: The union as third party, beyond the control of its members, and adversarial by nature.
Unions are democratic organizations, created and organized by the members. Employees elect representatives from their own ranks to negotiate contracts, they get progress reports on the status of negotiations, they offer feedback on the way the contract is shaping up, and finally they vote on the proposal. Should unforeseen negative consequences of contract language arise, they can be addressed immediately mid-contract, or at worst during the next contract negotiations.
But the idea that a cooperative, productive relationship can exist between employer and the elected representatives of employees seems to escape the Times.
Oh, how I miss the Seattle Union Record.
— David Groves, Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO
THURSDAY,
MAY 31
Rally at noon Friday with UW TAs on 1st day
of strike
University of Washington graduate student employees will hold a solidarity rally at noon Friday at the school's entrance on 40th Street and 15th Avenue NE. Friday is the first day of an anticipated strike against the university should an agreement not be reached by then.
GSEAC/UAW, the union for teaching assistants, graders and tutors, and the UW administration have been negotiating a first contract since February. An agreement under which the union pledged not to strike while both parties sought "enabling legislation" has expired after the bill became another victim of Olympia gridlock and the condescension of an influential legislator ("I really don't think I understand why they need a union," said labor committee co-chair Rep. Jim Clements.)
So earlier this month, GSEAC/UAW members voted 1061 to 100 to authorize their bargaining team to call a strike should an agreement not be reached by May 28.
The union has always maintained that the university could voluntarily enter into an agreement enforceable by a third party without specific legislation, as public universities in other states have. But UW President Richard McCormick (rlm@u.washington.edu) and the UW Board of Regents (regents@u.washington.edu) have so far remained steadfast in their position that legislation must come first. In doing so, they choose to allow a strike that will disrupt next week's final exams and create a furor among students angry about the expected impact on their GPAs and graduation schedules.
Undergraduates have already reported cases where the UW is compromising academic standards in order to mitigate the potential effects of a strike. (Also, see today's Seattle Times story, UW fuels strike-related GPA fears.)
"I have had reports of classes in several departments, such as Sociology, Economics, Anthropology, and others where professors are compromising the academic integrity of their courses by changing finals to multiple choice exams that do not need to be graded by teaching assistants," says Jasmin Weaver, President of the Associated Students of the University of Washington (ASUW). "Students are complaining that they are not getting the education that they paid for."
A memo to Deans, Directors and Chairs instructs faculty to give final grades based on work done up to the final exam or give a credit/no credit grade in the event that the TA does not administer the final exam. A credit/no credit grade cannot be used to raise a student's grade point average, sometimes does not count towards graduation, and is frowned on by graduate schools and potential employers.
"It is unbelievable that the university is engaging in behavior that compromises undergraduate education rather than agreeing to a contract that is fully enforceable," said Weaver. "The effects of a potential strike are already being felt by undergraduates."
At 5:15 p.m. today, representatives from several of the largest undergraduate student groups on campus will be protesting the administration's handling of the situation. A group of students, including representatives from the ASUW, Affordable Tuition Now!, MEChA, the Student Action Network, La Raza, and Washington Students Against Sweatshops will be picketing at UW President Richard McCormick's house, at 808 36th Avenue East in Seattle's Madison Park neighborhood. They will call on the President to grant GSEAC/UAW a contract that is fully enforceable by a neutral third party, and to stop compromising undergraduate education in his efforts to mitigate the effects of the strike.
WEDNESDAY,
MAY 30
UW TAs will strike Friday if no agreement by
then
The following press release was issued Monday by the Graduate Student Employee Action Coalition/United Auto Workers (GSEAC/UAW) at the University of Washington: (Also, see yesterday's Seattle Times story, UW teaching aides set Friday strike deadline.)
The bargaining team for the Graduate Student Employee Action Coalition/United Auto Workers (GSEAC/UAW), the Union for TAs, readers, graders, and tutors at the University of Washington, has called for a strike beginning Friday, June 1st.
"The University is still resisting agreement with us on several issues that are top priorities for our members," says Evren Damar, teaching assistant in economics and GSEAC/UAW bargaining team member. "Our members are willing to fight for a contract that is fully arbitrable by a neutral third party."
The Union and the University have been negotiating since February. The agreement under which the Union agrees not to strike expires May 28th. Two weeks ago, GSEAC/UAW members voted 1061 to 100 to authorize their bargaining team to call a strike.
"TAs, readers, graders, and tutors will not stand for a contract that is not fully enforceable by a neutral third party," says Andrew Boudreaux, Lead Teaching Assistant in the Physics Department.
Teaching assistants, readers, graders, and tutors are responsible for virtually all of the grading in lower-level undergraduate courses. Many teaching assistants have sole responsibility for courses. Finals week at the University is June 4-8.
"The University is provoking a crisis that will greatly effect undergraduate education," says Jasmin Weaver, an undergraduate at UW and President of the Associated Students of the University of Washington. "It is outrageous that this is happening because the University will not agree to a fair contract that is fully enforceable through neutral third party arbitration."
"Our goal is to reach a mutually acceptable settlement by Friday," says GSEAC/UAW bargaining team member Larin McLaughlin. "No one wants to strike, but we will if we have to."
If you have news items regarding unions or workplace issues in Washington state that you would like to see posted here, please submit them via e-mail to David Groves or via fax to 206-285-5805.
Copyright © 2001 Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO