Reformers Win in California Grad Union Election

By Barry Eidlin
Labor Notes
May 10 2011 

http://labornotes.org/print/blogs/2011/05/reformers-win-california-grad-union-election

Graduate workers across the University of California have
voted to transform their union. The Academic Workers for a
Democratic Union slate swept all 10 executive board positions
and nearly 60 percent of Joint Council positions in United
Auto Workers Local 2865. The local is the largest graduate
worker union in the country and the largest UAW local in the
West, representing 12,000 academic student workers at nine UC
campuses.

AWDU ran a hard-fought campaign against the incumbent
leadership, which dubbed itself United for Social and
Economic Justice. The campaign itself was tough, but getting
the votes counted was even tougher. When it looked like
USEJ might lose, the elections committee abruptly suspended
the vote count last week and abandoned the ballots. Only in
the face of marches, petitions, a sit-in in the union office,
political pressure, and national media exposure did the
committee resume the count.

AWDU won 55 percent of the vote statewide and up to 90
percent on some campuses. Its presidential candidate, Cheryl
Deutsch, a second-year grad student in anthropology at UC
Irvine, garnered 56 percent of 3,241 votes cast, a record
turnout in a union where members have largely been
uninvolved.

AWDU formed in early 2010 out of frustration with that lack
of involvement and with the union’s absence from the movement
to defend public education, which has at times been heated on
UC campuses. The reform movement picked up steam in late
2010, when members mobilized (unsuccessfully) for a 'no' vote
on what they saw as a substandard contract negotiated
with little member input.

Last month, AWDU campaigned on a platform of fighting for
public education through grassroots, bottom-up organizing.
"We believe only a participatory, bottom-up union can get
UC’s priorities back on track," Deutsch said.

The new leadership is making plans to build a more member-
driven, movement-oriented union. On top of fighting massive
cuts to public education and developing new strategies for
contract enforcement, the local is also gearing up for a
major campaign to organize more than 10,000 UC graduate
research assistants.

For more information, go to awdu.org .


[Barry Eidlin is a sociology grad student at Berkeley.]

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