We believe it is important for members to know their union's history. One can see how the GSEU came to be and how it has changed over the years. And one can see aspects of GSEU that might be worthwhile reviving, and other aspects that need to be put to rest. Below is the standard history of the GSEU from
initial organizing to PERB certification and the first few years of the
union (from the mid 90s Buffalo site). We will be posting a 1995-2005 history soon.
History of GSEU 1975-1995
The GSEU was started in the mid-70s at SUNY Buffalo.
Although the University President met repeatedly with the Union, he
demanded that the Union seek legal recognition through the labor board
(PERB). The GSEU mounted a formal membership drive and submit ted their
petition to PERB, asking for a certification election. PERB, however, ruled
that the bargaining unit could not be restricted to Buffalo but had to
instead include all the graduate employees in the SUNY system. Organizers,
daunted by the scope of this task, temporarily abandoned hope for legal
recognition and focused on issues-based actions.
In 1980-81, the GSEU sprang up again at SUNY Stony
Brook. Graduate students there held a short strike that year, successfully
forestalling planned cuts and winning a significant pay raise as well. By
1982-83, activists were ready to try creating a state wide union. Funded
largely by money from graduate student governments, the GSEU mounted a
membership drive, targeting TAs, GAs and RAs. Within six months, GSEU had
collected the requisite 30% to approach PERB for an election. When the
cards were submit ted to PERB, however, the State raised a variety of legal
objections, claiming on the one hand that the GSEU was a "student
club" rather than a union, and on the other hand that the RAs were not
employed by the state but by the Research Foundation, an "in
dependent" entity.
Despite frustration on the legal front, the GSEU
realized it was having an effect. Salaries rose 33% between 1982 and 1984.
At Stony Brook, where parking had long been a problem, GSEU won
faculty/staff parking privileges for its members. However, GSEU activists
also realized that to win formal recognition they would need experienced
legal and organizational backing. In Spring 1983, the membership voted
overwhelmingly to affiliate with CWA, forming our own statewide CWA Local
1188. In response, the St ate argued that the original certification
petition was now invalid, because the post-affiliation GSEU was now a
"different" union.
Another card drive was mounted, this time funded by
CWA, and a new petition was filed with PERB at the end of 1984. This time
the petition was on behalf of TAs and GAs only. The State took the position
that TAs and GAs had no right to collective bargain ing because they were
students, not employees: their salaries, "scholarships"; and
their work, "study." Throughout 1985 and 1986, PERB held hearings
on the GSEU petition. In the summer of 1987, PERB Director of
Representation Harvey Milowe ruled that gr aduate student employees do not
have the right to collective bargaining because, although they are employed
by the state, their employee status is "contingent upon their status
as students." The Director cited as precedent a case in which New York
prison ers tried to unionize. GSEU then appealed this decision to the full
three-member PERB board.
During this period, the level of grass-roots
involvement in GSEU remained high. At SUNY Stony Brook in 1987, TA salaries
were frozen despite across-the-board funding increases from graduate
programs. In response to this and other abuses, graduate studen t employees
staged a work-stoppage and then a strike. (In New York State, public
employee unions are prohibited from fomenting or supporting strikes, so of
course the GSEU had nothing to do with this and other work actions
described in this history.) TA s and GAs won a 20% wage increase, $50,000
in subsidies for low-income parents using University child-care, and a
standardized set of rules governing funding decisions. Less dramatic but no
less real political battles were also fought during this time at Albany,
Binghamton and Buffalo.
Meanwhile, the two sitting board members at PERB
deadlocked on the GSEU case. GSEU had been without organizing funds since
1985, and as the legal situation remained stalled, grass-roots interest in
the Union began to flag. From fall 1987 through fall 19 89, the GSEU was
reduced to a skeleton organization. With renewed funding in 1989 from CWA
as well as the Student Association of the State University and various
graduate student governments, GSEU began to rebuild.
In 1990, graduate student employees at SUNY Buffalo
staged work-stoppages, successfully fighting job cuts, excessive workloads,
and a planned loss of tuition waivers. Statewide, GSEU launched a concerted
pressure campaign on the issues of health insuranc e and union recognition.
Tactics ranged from lobbying state legislators to taking over Trustees'
meetings, to mass rallies.Ê
Finally, in 1992, PERB ruled unanimously in favor of
GSEU's appeal, overturning the original ruling and granting TAs and GAs
collective bargaining rights. The board also ruled against the SUNY faculty
union's attempt to absorb TAs and GAs into its bargai ning unit without a
vote. SUNY and the State appealed this ruling to the courts and again lost.
In December 1992, GSEU won its certification election
with a 85% majority (1,936 yes; 338 no). Contract negotiations began in
early spring 1993.
Most of GSEU's efforts in the last year have gone
towards its first contract. At the outset of negotiations, the Union's
priorities included health insurance (graduate employees in SUNY had never
received health benefits heretofore), wage increases, grie vance
procedures, tuition waivers, job descriptions, parking, child care and
guidelines on funding decisions. Negotiations were perhaps made more
difficult by the fact that the Union's primary counterpart across the
bargaining table was not the Universit y Administration but the Governor's
Office of Employee Relations (GOER). Especially in the early phase of
negotiations, GOER repeatedly tried to take advantage of GSEU's
inexperience and engaged in a variety of dilatory tactics. Through the
summer of 19 93, little substantive progress was made.
Contract negotiations shifted into high gear as the
1993-94 school year began and GSEU members came back to the campuses.
Health insurance, wages, and grievance procedures emerged as the most
important issues. Following a long custom of strict pattern-b argaining,
the State had settled with each of the other public employee unions on two
4% wage increases over the next two years. However, GOER told GSEU that the
cost of any health plan it negotiated would reduce the size of any wage
increase it negotiat ed. As for grievance procedures, GOER refused to even
offer a counterproposal until the final days of negotiations.
In response to the State's recalcitrance, GSEU
members organized a number of actions on the campuses around these issues,
with the primary focus on health care. Members held informational pickets,
a graduate student "Soup Kitchen," and a GSEU
"Hospital." They leafleted and briefly took the stage at
Distinguished Lecture Series. They staged a rally outside the negotiations
room in Albany and took over the President's Office at Stony Brook. These
mobilizations seemed to make a difference: a tentative ag reement between
GSEU and the State was reached in time for the 1994 New Year. The tentative
agreement included a health plan paid 90% by the State and a 4% wage
increase for each of the next two years, as well as a multi-step grievance
procedure. The co ntract settlement was ratified overwhelmingly (453 yes; 2
no).
The GSEU finally began collecting dues in April and
is making the transition to financial self-sufficiency. GSEU is currently
engaged in various aspects of contract implementation: learning how to
utilize an imperfect grievance procedure effectively, and working to help
get the health plan in place for a Fall 1995 start-up. GSEU is also
continuing the task of setting up functioning steward systems on each
campus and developing materials and plans for a big membership push when
school starts in Fall 1994 .
The State continues to fight GSEU's attempts to gain
a certification election for Research Assistants. They claim the Research
Foundation, which writes the pay checks for RAs, in an independent,
non-profit organization. GSEU is currently before PERB on t his issue.
An ongoing issue for GSEU is how to reconcile its
statewide nature -- four large and several smaller campus chapters with
diverse characters and issues -- with building a truly member-driven union
where leadership comes from the ground up.
To be continued.......
The sequel will include how GSEU went broke and denied representation to whole campuses; how GSEU/CWA 1188 merged with 1104 and 1112; a summary of GSEU negotiating from 1993 to the present (go to the Links section if you would like to compare GSEU contracts over the past decade); etc. Come back soon.
