-Andy English
-----Original Message----- From: Tom Lehman <uswa12 at lorainccc.edu> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Thursday, July 20, 2000 7:41 PM Subject: Re: Grad Unions and Other Labor Leaders
>Ok. Speaking of college stuff....what's the story on this???
>
>http://www.nrtw.org/b/nr_198.htm
>
>Tom Lehman
>
>Dennis R Redmond wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 20 Jul 2000, Nathan Newman wrote:
>>
>> > Well, my time as an elected member of UC-Berkeley's grad local, one of
the
>> > largest grad unions in the country, may not count in your mind, but
given
>> > the time I spent as steward, exec board member and rep from the union
>> > in campus and community coalitions fighting cuts in education spending
in
>> > the early 90s, I think I know of what I speak.
>>
>> No you don't. You're talking about classic lobbying -- mobilizing
>> coalitions, bending the ear of legislators, etc. That's fine, but what's
>> new about the new union movement is that reps have to talk with *members
>> themselves*, that you have direct accountability, massive
>> information-flow, and members who, because they're informatic/service
>> workers, actually demand that information. This isn't something which
>> happens magically overnight; at the GTFF, it took almost a decade of
>> struggle, with ups and downs, to get these basic structures in place. We
>> still have a ways to go, of course, but the biggest change is
>> understanding that organizing is not a once-a-decade kind of thing. It
has
>> to happen every day, in small, little ways, you have to build it into the
>> very fabric of the union. Of course, the GTFF is one of the oldest grad
>> unions, so we're probably ahead of the curve; the UC unions will likely
go
>> on to learn similar lessons.
>>
>> -- Dennis
>