Andrew English wrote:
> The way I read it --
> California recently passed a fair-share measure for public employee
> bargaining units, creating agency shops.
> 2 right-wing professors teamed up with Right to Work
> to sue the faculty union CFA, and RTW claims they are speaking for all
> faculty in the state.
>
> -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
> >
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu