TEACHING ASSISTANTS ON 2 MORE U. OF CALIFORNIA CAMPUSES VOTE TO UNIONIZE
By COURTNEY LEATHERMAN
Graduate teaching assistants on all eight University of California campuses where the unionization question was put to a vote have won their battles. Now comes the real test -- bargaining for contracts.
Organizers with the unions -- all affiliates of the United Auto Workers -- claimed a 68-percentage-point margin of victory statewide and a 55-per-cent turnout. The unions represent nearly 10,000 graduate-student employees. The union at the university's Los Angeles campus won the first election in April, clearing the way for the other seven. On Friday, the Public Employment Relations Board announced a clean sweep, with T.A.'s on the university's Riverside and Santa Barbara campuses -- the last two to be counted -- also voting to unionize.
The biggest margin of victory was at Santa Cruz, where 85 per cent of the 231 T.A.'s who voted supported unionization. The smallest margin was at San Diego, where 57 per cent of 496 voted for the union. The biggest turnout was at Berkeley; the smallest was at Santa Barbara.
Teaching assistants at Berkeley began the battle for collective-bargaining rights 16 years ago. The final victory was due to a strong union, a system-wide T.A. strike in December, legislative pressure, and a favorable ruling by the employment board, said Ricardo Ochoa, president of Berkeley's union, during a news conference.
Elizabeth Bunn, a vice-president at the auto-workers union, called the battle by California T.A.'s "an inspiration to the labor movement."
But Dion Aroner, a California Assemblywoman, noted that winning the right to bargain is just the "first step in democratizing a workplace." Actual bargaining, she said, is the next. "This is going to be a challenge for everyone. This university is not known for its short bargaining time frame," she said. But she suggested that she and other lawmakers were willing to apply more pressure on the university, if needed, to get the teaching assistants a fair contract.
In a statement, Brad Hayward, a spokesman for the university, said: "The university is and always has been committed to bargaining in good faith, and we hope to have productive negotiations with the U.A.W." Negotiators at U.C.L.A. began bargaining on June 11.