A note from the grad union at UMass-Amherst about conflicts with top UAW administration. A number of years ago, I know that this local was pretty tied into the New Directions union democracy movement in the UAW. I would suspect that this is another reason the UAW is threatening to put it into receivorship. --Nathan Newman =========================================
November 1, 1999
Dear Friends,
We are writing to ask your help.
Next week, the International Executive Board of the United Auto Workers will decide whether to place an administrator over the affairs of Local 2322 in Western Massachusetts. Local 2322 represents 3,000 workers, including 2,500 graduate student employees at GEO, the Graduate Employee Organization at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. This move will have profound and unintended negative consequences for the future of graduate student employee organizing.
An administratorship poses a drastic threat to GEO, one of the oldest and most established graduate employee unions in the country. Currently, graduate employees at UMass are skillfully serviced by a dedicated group of its own members. We are gravely concerned that, for petty political reasons, the democratically elected GEO leadership will be removed from office and replaced with UAW representatives with little knowledge of graduate student culture or issues.
We oppose an administratorship for the following reasons:
1. It is UNNECESSARY because Local leaders can be held accountable under the union's own rules to ensure the checks and balances of democracy. 2. It is UNJUST because the International UAW, before threatening a takeover, has not learned the full story, or even attempted to talk to people on all sides of the issue. 3. It is UNDEMOCRATIC because an administratorship ensures that GEO and the rest of the Local will be needlessly stripped of our hard fought autonomy. It is perhaps a punishment for displaying too much democracy.
LETTER WRITING CAMPAIGN
We are writing to let you know about our crisis, and also to ask your help. We would like you to write a letter, even a very short one, that
1. Asks the UAW International Executive Board not to place an administrator over the affairs of Local 2322, including GEO. 2. Tells the UAW to let democracy work. 3. Asks the UAW to learn to the whole story of Local 2322. 4. Grant GEO's petition to form its own Local as a solution to problems in the Local.
We would ask you to mail these letters to the UAW International President Stephen P. Yokich. His address is Solidarity House, 8000 East Jefferson Ave., Detroit, MI 48214. His fax number is: (313) 823-6016. The e-mail address is: uaw at uaw.org. To track what people are sending, please send a copy by e-mail to shaw at soc.umass.edu or by fax to (413) 545-1457 (if you don't mind). Be sure to forward this e-mail along to anyone who you think would be interested or willing to help.
Also, if you would like further updates on this subject, please send us your e-mail address, and we will add you to our permanent list.
MORE DETAILS
A petition by 30 members of the Union alleges that "events have made it impossible to conduct the normal business of the Local," and that division and strife have made it impossible "to service the needs of all of our various shop." There are problems in our Local for sure, but they are currently being solved, slowly but surely, by a dedicated group of members using the Union's democratic procedures to ensure that every worker is fully represented, and that resources are allocated fairly.
ADMINISTRATORSHIP IS UNJUST
We are asking the UAW to let democracy work. The UAW's Int'l Executive Board may make a dire decision without ever considering the full story. They appear to have a very limited amount of information, and what information they have is one-sided. We have never been interviewed by a representative of the UAW, nor has any other activist or officer from GEO. The UAW will be acting irresponsibly if they impose an administratorship.
ADMINISTRATORSHIP IS UNNECESSARY
The daily work of the union is largely getting done in Local 2322. For example, GEO recently settled its fourth Collective Bargaining Agreement, which included a 3 to 5% raise; money for the first time to purchase for dental insurance; an increase in the amount of money devoted to the recruitment of graduate students from historically disadvantaged groups (e.g. race, class and gender); and professional development funds. In fact, we believe that our union contract is one of the strongest graduate employee contracts in the country. In the last year at our Local, seven other Collective Bargaining Agreements were reached, including a *first* contract at Providence Hospital.
There is a long history of politics that can best be described as conflict between GEO and a small group of non-GEO Local leaders. GEO representatives have been bringing these problems to the UAW Regional office for five years, but our requests for help have been routinely ignored. If the UAW would simply pause to listen, they would recognize that an administratorship is unnecessary.
ADMINISTRATORSHIP IS UNDEMOCRATIC
While the charge may be that the Local is acting undemocratically, the story is really the opposite. The Local is, in fact, being transformed from an undemocratic union into a democratic one. If the UAW interferes with this process by imposing an administrator, the democratic work in our union will be undermined. The UAW seems to have wrongly interpreted the current situation as an attempt by GEO to bully the Local when in fact we are trying to improve everyone's situation by forcing out a small group of undemocratic officials.
Over the last 18 months, we have made tremendous strides toward democratizing and improving our Local, but all is still not well. There is disturbing evidence that some workers are not being represented, grievances are not being pursued, and contracts are not being negotiated in some of the non-GEO shops in the Local. However, these problems cannot be attributed to the political turmoil within the Local, but to staff members neglecting their duties. The solution is to allow the Local's personnel committee and Joint Council to take the necessary action. Interference by the UAW will only prolong the turmoil.
>From nearly the beginning of GEO's involvement in Local 2322, a small group
of non-GEO members consolidated their power within the union. Small numbers
of union members, sometimes less than 10, would vote at union meetings to
spend money, often for their benefit. As GEO shouted to be heard, numerous
attempts were made by the Local president to silence GEO's voice. For
example, she requested that the number of GEO representatives to Joint
Council be reduced to six while the rest of the shops in the local would
share more than 20, even though GEO represents 80 percent of the workers in
the Local. (Joint Council, by the way, is a union Membership Meeting in
which each shops has representatives corresponding to its size.)
We were told by the Regional director that we should gain political power in the Local, and have our say that way. Well, that's what we did. We fought hard, and gained five of nine seats on the Local Executive Board. We recruited more representatives to Joint Council, and at these meetings, we democratically forced through an agenda that was more representative of the needs of all shops in the Local.
Because GEO members were forcing democracy into our local, those that had been benefiting from the previously undemocratic arrangements were threatened. Their base of power was disappearing, and along with it the perqs and privileges of power. GEO representatives on the Executive Board filed charges under the UAW Constitution alleging financial mismanagement and wrongdoing. These pro-democracy activists have fought and are still fighting to force our Local union to service everyone fairly.
Perhaps we are being punished for succeeding.
POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS
Some of you might be wondering why GEO members did not just seek to leave the Local. Well, we did. In April, GEO members voted by a 77% majority to petition the International UAW to allow us to vote to form our own UAW Local. We voted to petition the International in April, submitted our petition in June, but the UAW has thus far ignored our pleas. My fear is that an administratorship is the International's "answer" to our petition.
Separation is a far better solution than an administratorship. Union members would maintain their democratic voice in their union's decisions, and all shops represented by the Local would be able to make a fresh start. Some people who are opposed to separation are worried that the other shops would not be able to make it without the financial support of GEO's dues dollars, but we firmly believe that this problem can be solved, for example by placing the other shops of Local 2322 into a statewide human services local.
Click here to read our petition to the International: http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~geo/petition.htm
Click here to read a Working Group report that lead up to the petition: http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~geo/working.htm
BROADER CONTEXT
The conflict between GEO and the UAW is symbolic of the larger struggle over leadership styles between graduate employee unions and old-style international trade unions. These trade unions, including the UAW, have failed to keep up with the needs and ideals of their educational sector members. They seem to have little idea of who we really are as public sector workers and do not understand the types of problems we regularly face. We believe in a more decentralized and democratic style where decision-making rests with the rank-and-file. Instead, they tend to fall back on simplistic autocratic approaches that fail to solve the real problems. There are other stories from across the country of international unions interfering with the business of graduate employee unions. Our is but the most recent, and we encourage others of you who have experienced this type of treatment to tell your stories, too.
It is worth making the point, in case there are any doubts, that we at GEO and Local 2322 still deeply believe in the value of trade unionism. Furthermore, the ongoing social movement to unionize graduate student employees, of which the UAW is a part, is an important and needed movement, and I will fight to see it continued. Some have argued that we should lay low so the conflict in our union is not used by anti-union campaigns. However, I firmly believe that democracy requires a flow of information. I believe that airing these grievances, in the long run, will only make our union-and the union movement-stronger.
We believe that if the International UAW would listen to our concerns and let democracy work, the affairs of Local 2322 would be in order. An administratorship is the wrong way to go. Again, we encourage you to write the UAW and support us, and to help strengthen the labor movement.
In Solidarity, James A.W. Shaw President, Graduate Employee Organization, UAW Local 2322
Donna Krupp GEO Labor Educator/Former GEO Vice President
Tom Taaffe Guide, Local 2322
Matthew Clark Sargent-at-Arms, Local 2322
Leo Maley Stewards Assembly Representative to the Steering Committee
Emily LaBarbera-Twarog GEO President 1998-1999 GEO Treasurer 1997-1998
p.s. If you made it this far, thanks for reading!
Other Internet Resources:
Click here to read the UAW's letter announcing the hearing on November 9: http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~geo/uawletter.htm
Click here to read the section from the UAW Constitution that describes process of administratorship: http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~geo/article12.htm
************************** James A.W. Shaw, President Graduate Employee Organization United Auto Workers Local 2322 University of Massachusetts, Amherst
413-545-5317 (phone) 413-545-1457 (fax) shaw at soc.umass.edu geo at external.umass.edu http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~geo