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Research assistants at the State University of New York (SUNY) Research Foundation at Stony Brook overcame management’s strong anti-union effort, voting to join the Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1104 earlier this month.
The 740 research assistants (RAs), all doctoral students, are seeking better pay and benefits and fairer treatment from a university administration they say has continually claimed it could not afford to pay them a more livable wage. The workers are particularly aggrieved over a $500 transportation and technology fee that the institution charges them each semester—a fee that has been waived for graduate and teaching assistants at Stony Brook, who are represented by Local 1104.
After the vote, Matt Engle, a member of the organizing committee, told Newsday:
It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but for a lot of RAs making $20,000 a year, $1,000 is a lot. Basically, there has never been a negotiated raise for RAs ever.
Local 1104 now represents more than 4,000 graduate and teaching assistants at Stony Brook and in the SUNY system.
Although affiliated with SUNY, the privately managed Research Foundation resorted to captive audience meetings, one-on-ones, and other tactics to squelch the RAs’ campaign. Management also sought to delay or even block the election by challenging earlier National Labor Relations Board decisions that allow research assistants the right to organize.
The Research Foundation’s actions are another prime example of why the Employee Free Choice Act is so necessary. The Employee Free Choice Act will put real teeth in the laws that are supposed to bar companies from intimidating, harassing—even firing—workers who want to form unions. It will allow workers to form their union when a majority signs cards indicating that’s what they desire and require arbitration to end corporate foot-dragging when workers try to get a first contract.
Last week, President-elect Barack Obama reaffirmed that he wants to “strengthen the union movement in this country and put an end to the kinds of barriers and roadblocks that are in the way of workers legitimately coming together in order to form a union and bargain collectively.”
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As President-Elect Obama has said…..standing up with courage and clear purpose, they somehow managed to change the world.
We are changing the world, just as those who came before us…we will not be quiet any longer.