Reformers Win in California Grad Union Electio

Reformers Win in California Grad Union Election





By Barry Eidlin


Labor Notes


May 10 2011 





http://labornotes.org/print/blogs/2011/05/reformers-win-california-grad-union-election





Graduate workers across the University of California have


voted to transform their union. The Academic Workers for a


Democratic Union slate swept all 10 executive board positions


and nearly 60 percent of Joint Council positions in United


Auto Workers Local 2865. The local is the largest graduate


worker union in the country and the largest UAW local in the


West, representing 12,000 academic student workers at nine UC


campuses.





AWDU ran a hard-fought campaign against the incumbent


leadership, which dubbed itself United for Social and


Economic Justice. The campaign itself was tough, but getting


the votes counted was even tougher. When it looked like


USEJ might lose, the elections committee abruptly suspended


the vote count last week and abandoned the ballots. Only in


the face of marches, petitions, a sit-in in the union office,


political pressure, and national media exposure did the


committee resume the count.





AWDU won 55 percent of the vote statewide and up to 90


percent on some campuses. Its presidential candidate, Cheryl


Deutsch, a second-year grad student in anthropology at UC


Irvine, garnered 56 percent of 3,241 votes cast, a record


turnout in a union where members have largely been


uninvolved.





AWDU formed in early 2010 out of frustration with that lack


of involvement and with the union’s absence from the movement


to defend public education, which has at times been heated on


UC campuses. The reform movement picked up steam in late


2010, when members mobilized (unsuccessfully) for a 'no' vote


on what they saw as a substandard contract negotiated


with little member input.





Last month, AWDU campaigned on a platform of fighting for


public education through grassroots, bottom-up organizing.


"We believe only a participatory, bottom-up union can get


UC’s priorities back on track," Deutsch said.





The new leadership is making plans to build a more member-


driven, movement-oriented union. On top of fighting massive


cuts to public education and developing new strategies for


contract enforcement, the local is also gearing up for a


major campaign to organize more than 10,000 UC graduate


research assistants.





For more information, go to awdu.org .








[Barry Eidlin is a sociology grad student at Berkeley.]