News Briefs - October 31, 2004

CLEP Update - October 13, 2004

Pro-union Resolutions at Academic Associations

MLA Resolution on Graduate Employee Organizing and NLRB Decision

American Musicological Association Resolution on Graduate Employee

Organizing

Item 1
CLEP UPDATE - October 13, 2004
Our Labor Education Program (LEP) will be hiring another labor educator.
Job starts August 2005. Deadline for application: December 1.
The job is being posted in two forms: one is as a tenure-track job (you have to have a PhD and publish research as
well as teach); the other is as a labor education specialist. For the labor education specialist position, you need a BA
(NLC graduates can apply) and "relevant experience," which means labor
movement experience. This job is based in Champaign and requires travel around Illinois.

October 16, 23 and 30 (Saturdays, 9-4). LABOR STUDIES 200, required National Labor College
Class, Bob Bruno, Instructor. Role of labor in the economy; current issues.

October 21: Chicago Center for Working Class Studies. Bob Bruno coordinates panel discussion
on "Who and What are the working class?" 6-8 pm. This event takes place at the School of the Art Institute
Exhibition Studies space, 1926 North Halsted. For more information call: 773-665-4802.

November 9: BASIC CERTIFICATE CLASS #2, STEWARD TRAINING. Meets Tuesday nights
6:8:30 through December 14. Note: This class was originally planned to start November 2. Someone pointed
out that that is election night, so we will start it one week later.

November 12, 13: EDUCATIONAL PLANNING 299 offered in Champaign at UIUC. Call 217243-0980 for more information and to enroll. This is the 10-hour class in which you learn how to assemble
the portfolio through which you earn credit for life experience and other assessed education towards the BA
in Labor Studies offered in our partnership with the National Labor College of the George Meany Center.

Health and Safety classes offered by CACOSH are available at your workplace or union hall. Call
to set up a visit from CACOSH organizer Emanuel Blackwell: 312-666-1611.
All classes at our office at 815 West van Buren Street unless otherwise listed.
Sent by Helena Worthen (hworthen@uic.edu) via email on October 14, 2004
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Item 2
Rose K. Murphy (rose@yaleunions.org) writes (10/12/04)
The grad unions currently engaged in organizing drives are spearheading pro-union resolutions at several academic
associations this year condemning the NLRB's decision in Brown University.
So far the American Sociological Association has passed such a resolution. The New Political Science Section of
the American Political Science Association has also passed a resolution.
Resolutions have been submitted to associations who have conferences in November, including the African Studies
Association, the American Academy of Religion and the American Musicological Association. Several more are in

the pipeline.
If you are attending an academic conference this year, make sure you go to the annual business meeting of the
association, which is where resolutions are voted on. Your vote and your willingness to speak on behalf of the
collective bargaining rights of graduate assistants will make a big difference. I am including a sample resolution
below so you know what to look for.
If you are interested in working on getting a resolution passed in your field, please contact me. Most urgently, we
are looking for a member of the Linguistics Society of America.
In solidarity,
Rose K. Murphy
GESO (The Grad Union at Yale)
UNITE HERE!
(203) 785-9407 x285
(203) 988-6037 (cell)
Posted to Adjunct Mailing List on October 14, 2004 by Marcia Newfield (revolu@earthlink.net)
Subscription and Archiving Option also available through the Web Interface at:
http://listserv.gc.cuny.edu/lyris.pl?enter=adj-l
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Item 3
MLA Resolution on Contingent Labor
Whereas: graduate employees of most public universities enjoy the right to unionize and 40,000 are so organized;
the National Labor Relations Board in the 2002 New York University case affirmed the identical right of graduate
employees at private universities; and in 2004 a differently constituted NLRB reversed the NYU precedent;
Whereas: the Modern Language Association has approved resolutions asserting that graduate students working for
pay are employees; has endorsed their right, along with that of other part-time faculty members, to bargain
collectively; has "encourage[d] its members and all those employed in teaching and research in the modern
languages and literature, to unionize. . . " (Motion 1999-11); and has taken a forward role in this cause by leading in
formation of the Coalition on the Academic Workforce;
Whereas the Modern Language Association in Motion 1999-11 and elsewhere recognizes the interrelationship of
graduate education, graduate employment and the growth of part-time and non-tenure-track term work in an
"academic labor system," in which the tenure-stream faculty currently account for only 30% of the teaching force;
We therefore move: that the MLA explore cooperation with activist groups such as the Coalition of Contingent
Academic Labor (COCAL), the Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions, and the California Part-time Faculty
Association; with unions such as the American Association of University Professors,
the National Education Association, and the American Federation of Teachers; and with the MLA's sister
professional and scholarly organizations, to reverse the latest NLRB ruling and reestablish basic labor rights for
graduate employees and other term workers; more specifically, that the Association help to bring about participation
of such groups in a conference being organized by COCAL for the same
purpose, and tentatively scheduled for 2006.
background material:
1. The National Labor Relations Board1s ruling (minus appendices) of October, 2000, in "New York University and
International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America";
2. NLRB press release on its ruling in the Brown University case, 7/15/04;
3. New York Times article on that ruling by Steven Greenhouse and Karen W. Arenson, "Labor Board Says Graduate
Students at Private Universities Have No Right to Unionize," 7/16/04;
4. Scott Smallwood, "The NLRB1s ruling on Collective Bargaining," The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 30,
2004;
5. Richard Moser, "The New Academic Labor System, Corporatization, and the Renewal of Academic Citizenship,"
an AAUP essay, 6/12/01;
6. "Recognition & Respect," American Federation of Teachers 2004.

Marc Bousquet (marc.bousquet@louisville.edu) writes in explanation of the above resolution:

Richard Ohmann and I with others wrote the appended motion for the MLA (English and other language depts).
Key point: ours is a motion committing MLA to help arrange a summit meeting of all willing disciplinary
associations at the COCAL conference in summer 2006. (Which brings up my other fond dream, that CGEU and
COCAL would hold their summer conferences jointly!). In MLA, motions commit the org
to do things; resolutions express sentiment. Motions are more trouble, but often more useful (though association
staff and officers can scuttle anything they really don't like).
Also, ours as you'll see relates the situation of adjunct labor (nearly all current or former graduate employees) to
grad employees, which we in all humility suggest is a worthwhile consideration at the level of disciplinary
associations.
Posted to Adjunct Mailing List on October 14, 2004 by Marcia Newfield (revolu@earthlink.net)
Subscription and Archiving Option also available through the Web Interface at:
http://listserv.gc.cuny.edu/lyris.pl?enter=adj-l
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Item 4
American Musicological Association Resolution
WHEREAS, 260,000 teaching and research assistants are currently identified by the U.S. Department of Education
as part of the higher educational instructional workforce; and
WHEREAS all individuals performing work for colleges and universities are entitled to unionize and bargain
collectively in promotion of their interests as employees and in support of a fair living wage and
adequate benefits; and
WHEREAS, on July 13, 2004, in the case of Brown University, the National Labor Relations Board voted along
partisan lines to reverse an earlier, unanimous decision that graduate assistants were entitled to organize under the
National Labor Relations Act, and ruled that graduate teaching and research assistants are not employees eligible to
unionize under the Act; and
WHEREAS freedom of speech, expression, and association are essential to academic workplaces, and
WHEREAS other academic associations, including the American Sociological Association and a committee of the
American Political Science Association have recently passed resolutions supporting the rights of graduate assistants
to form unions; therefore
BE IT RESOLVED that the American Musicological Association joins with other academic associations in
supporting the collective bargaining rights of graduate assistants at all universities;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the American Musicological Association deplores the NLRB decision in Brown,
which affects the academic workplaces where our members are employed;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the American Musicological Association condemns any retaliation against
graduate students by university faculty members or administrators for their union activities;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the American Musicological Association recommends that the administrations
of Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, Tufts University and any other university
where graduate assistants seek to form unions work out a fair process for
graduate assistants to decide whether or not to unionize, in an atmosphere free from intimidation and coercion.
Posted to Adjunct Mailing List on October 14, 2004 by Marcia Newfield (revolu@earthlink.net)
Subscription and Archiving Option also available through the Web Interface at:
http://listserv.gc.cuny.edu/lyris.pl?enter=adj-l
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Last revised on October 31, 2004 by the Webmaster.