Can you post this for me on pen-L? I'm trying to get an ad for the Teaching Assistants. -Ellen As of last week the Academic Student Employees have a majority vote to strike the U.C. campuses this semester if the U.C. system does not recognize them/commence to bargain in good faith. (See below for more details.) So far the courts have ruled with the Student Employees, but unless the U.C. caves it looks like a strike is eminent. This recalcitrance to respect the human rights of workers to organize by U.C. exemplifies the importance at this historic time of our work to link intellectual workers with the multicultural workers' movement. Here is an employer, not motivated just by profit, like a transnational corporation, but an academic employer supposedly motivated by goals of democratic principle and scientific inquiry, defying even the veneer of legal convention to coerce these workers to forgo their right to union affiliation. Academic Student Employees (ASE) has asked that Scholars Artists and Writers for Social Justice (SAWSJ) collect signatures (and funds to purchase ad space in the L.A. Times, the Chronicle and the New York Times, funding permitting.) for a petition (see statement below) What is Scholars Artists and Writers for Social Justice? It is an organization in solidarity with the multicultural workers' movement; which envisions "a movement that can reshape a nation's political culture by combating inequity and powerlessness, and by fostering the growth of a vibrant, militant, multicultural working-class movement." For more information: Scholars, Artists and Writers for Social Justice (SAWSJ) c/o Labor Relations and Research Center University of Massachusetts Amherst 125 Draper Hall, Box 32020 Amherst, MA 01003 Phone: (413) 545-3541 Fax: (413) 545-0110 Internet: www.sage.edu/html/SAWSJ Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] SAWSJ Membership Application: If you would like to join, please download and fill out to join by snail mail: Basic Information Name: Email: Home Phone: ( ) Work Phone: ( ) Address: City, State, Zip: Organizational Affiliations: University (if any): Work: Union (if any): Political and Cultural Groups: Other: Dues - check one: ____ $10 student/low income ____ $25 others with incomes below $40,000 ____ $40 for those with incomes of $40,000 or above Other: ____ I am already a member/not interested in joining SAWSJ at this time. Enclosed is my contribution for the ad to support ASE E-mail List Information: SAWSJ maintains an informational email list. Once or at most twice a week, we send out news and information, collected from many sources, about labor and social justice issues. SAWSJ Activities: We are working at creating, both local chapters and networks focused on particular issues. Today the Bay Area chapter of Scholars, Artists and Writers for Social Justice (SAWSJ) is asking your help today for the following: Graduate and undergraduate academic student employees throughout the University of California system are planning a strike for this Fall forced upon them by the university administrators failure to negotiate with their unions. This strike has been precipitated by the UC's refusal to bargain with academic student employees, despite the fact that the unions have majority membership on each of the campuses, as has been verified by the state's Public Employment Relations Board. In addition to refusing to uphold basic democratic principle, the university administration has refused to accept recent legal decisions in favor of the ASE unions at both UCLA and UC San Diego. Last Spring, after the UC exhausted its legal appeals, the union won an overwhelming victory in a state-sanctioned election covering readers, tutors, and associates (graduate students who teach their own courses). Yet incredibly, the UC threatened to ignore the results, and it appears that the administration at UCSD has now followed through on this threat by refusing to negotiate a contract for UCSD associates. While objectionable in and of itself, this suggests the very real possibility that the administration might refuse to accept a legal decision or election at UCLA (where the UC's appeal is still pending) that would extend bargaining rights for teaching assistants. We at the Bay Area Chapter of Scholars, Activists, and Writers for Social Justice (SAWSJ) find the UC's conduct reprehensible. As a matter of democratic principle, we believe that university administrators are compelled to bargain with the these employees. We would like to help the unions pressure the university into bargaining, and hopefully avert a strike. We are circulating a petition including the statement below. Please read the statement, and if you agree to have your name attached to it, please respond by email with your name and affiliation, to: "Ellen Starbird" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] And please also follow up by asking others to sign the statement below. (Use the SAWSJ address above to send in a contribution snail mail to help defray the costs of printing and advertising.) STATEMENT: "A majority of the University of California's academic student employees (ASEs) has chosen to be represented by the United Auto Workers on all eight of the UC's teaching campuses. Yet University of California administrators are wasting valuable public resources and ignoring democratic principle in attempting to deny their teaching assistants, tutors, and readers the fundamental right to bargain over wages, benefits, and working conditions. The unions have authorized a strike that will affect the entire University of California system this Fall. We support the right to organize, and stand with these union members in calling on the U.C. system to honor their rights. In these times where human rights (such as the right to join a union) are being systematically ignored not only by corporate America, but even by institutions supposedly committed to perpetuating democratic values, we must express our outrage. We join with the Bay Area chapter of Scholars, Activists, and Writers for Social Justice (SAWSJ) in condemning the University of California administration's refusal to bargain. We call upon the U.C. administration to stop wasting tax dollars for union busting! Avert the strike. Bargain with Academic Student Employee unions!" Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
