{"id":2318,"date":"2021-02-09T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uniontrack.com\/blog\/?p=2318"},"modified":"2021-02-08T16:02:43","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T16:02:43","slug":"university-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uniontrack.com\/blog\/university-workers","title":{"rendered":"Labor News Roundup: University Workers Around the Country"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ken Green
CEO & Founder
UnionTrack<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Labor activism has been gaining steam at universities across the country as student workers and faculty alike have increasingly come together to voice their frustrations with the policies and actions of institutional decision makers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last 15 years, \u201cundergraduate students have formed organizations that challenge their teachers\u2019 poor working conditions, graduate workers and adjuncts have unionized and demanded respect and compensation for their labor, and even tenure-track and tenured professors have started to unionize and recognize their contingent peers as colleagues,\u201d writes Daniel Bessner<\/a>, a professor at the University of Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COVID-19 has accelerated union-member activism at universities as operational decisions by administrators have given rise to concerns around faculty pay, benefits, health and safety throughout the pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s a look at some of the recent happenings with labor unions on college campuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Graduate Students Strike at the University of Michigan<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On Labor Day 2020, graduate student instructors and staff assistants at the University of Michigan went on strike, primarily to protest the university\u2019s fall reopening plans amid the pandemic, as well as policing on campus, writes Michael Merriweather<\/a>, office manager at Teamsters for a Democratic Union. The vote to hold in-person and virtual picketing was a result of graduate students claiming the university failed to adequately protect them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need a fair and just pandemic response,\u201d said Jeff Lockhart<\/a>, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology and a union member. \u201cThe university is disregarding all of the best evidence and advice from its own experts in terms of how they should be reopening.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those expectations, as presented by the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO), which represents the students, included increased testing and contact tracing, the right to work remotely, childcare subsidies, assistance with on-campus housing, and changes to campus law enforcement, Merriweather writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to the strike, the university filed an unfair labor practice charge against the union,  sought a temporary restraining order, and sought a preliminary injunction citing the illegality of public employees going on strike. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The GEO did not refute the claim, but said its members felt they had no other choice. \u201cWe\u2019ve been engaging with them all summer and we\u2019ve not made progress on any of these incredibly important issues,\u201d said Amir Fleischmann<\/a>, secretary of GEO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their decision to take a risk and stand firm paid off for the workers as they accepted an offer from the university, ending the nine-day strike. The university also withdrew its legal actions against the union. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement, the GEO<\/a> described the agreement as \u201ccritical progress.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy withholding our labor, building coalitions, and making our power impossible to ignore, we forced the university to give us an offer with substantive progress toward a safe and just campus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"College<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Faculty Strike at Youngstown State University<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The YSU Ohio Education Association (YSU-OEA) spent most of 2020 negotiating a new three-year contract with the Youngstown State University Board of Trustees. Those negotiations came to a head in October, as they approached the December deadline without having reached agreements on new contracts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tensions flared after the YSU Board of Trustees rejected a fact-finding report that had been approved by members of the YSU-OEA, reports Isaac Finn<\/a>, writer for World Socialist Web Site. In response, the union issued a 10-day intent-to-strike notice to the university with 86 percent of members approving the OEA-backed strike. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis decision reinforces what members said last week when they voted overwhelmingly to accept Judge Widgeon\u2019s fact-finding report and we hope that the Administration hears us too, this time,\u201d said YSU-OEA spokesperson Mark Vopat<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faculty took to the streets on October 12 to strike while negotiating teams continued to work toward an agreement. As Josh Medore<\/a> at the Business Journal Daily reported, the union was pushing for four key elements in the new contract: <\/p>\n\n\n\n