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Major GMM February 23rd

January 31, 2010

We have a major General Membership Meeting coming up on February 23rd, so it's time to put it on your calendar and plan on being there.

While we have a GMM on February 4th to handle some basic business carried over from our December GMM, the GMM on February 23rd is going to be big. Big in number of people there, and big in what we address.

The GMM on February 23rd will be about the direction our union is taking with contract negotiations and our approach to winning changes on how Segregated Fees impact grad student workers. We will make decisions at this meeting on both of these topics -- they are inextricably linked so it will be like one big discussion.

We are starting the 2009-2011 contract negotiations and our Bargaining Team has been hard at work, translating the input, feedback, ideas, and preferences of our membership into proposals and a bargaining platform. They will put forward the product of that work at this meeting for review and debate, along with that of our overall bargaining strategy. Also, we have consistently heard that the top issue for grads is the adverse impact of Segregated Fees. We will be running a comprehensive campaign in conjunction with our contract bargaining to take action on Seg Fees. At this meeting our ad hoc Seg Fees workgroup will put forward alternatives and recommendations on how to proceed with our campaign. Your voices and votes on where our union goes with these two topics will be critical to the future of our union and what we can accomplish together as grad student workers.

Union democracy in a local like ours has two components. We debate and make decisions collectively on the major policies of the union. We carry out those decisions collectively through our work in the union, be it through our committees, our Stewards' Council, or our elected leadership. We run our union in the full sense -- so we need you to be there as a participating member to make our union work.

With any questions about the General Membership Meeting on February 23rd, be in touch with our Co-Presidents, Peter Rickman and Katie Lindstrom.

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TAA Volunteer Night!

Reviving an old tradition, the TAA Volunteer Night is back!

We will be holding a volunteer night on February 11th at 5:30 PM at the TAA office. The volunteer night will go for a couple hours at most, with food and beverage for all.

At volunteer nights, members of the union get together to accomplish two things:

First, we have a great time with lots of grad student workers hanging out.

Second, we complete projects of the union that require lots of people working in a concentrated fashion.

At the upcoming volunteer nights, complete with food and beverage for all, we will (a) do some envelope-stuffing for a mailing to non-member grad student workers in our bargaining unit of TAs and PAs and (b) work on building our database of all grad student workers in our bargaining unit.

These are easy, low-intensity tasks that are really important for the work of union. And when we do them together as a group, it makes for light work for all -- allowing us to have a great time, hanging out together.

If you can make it there, please RSVP to our Co-Presidents Peter Rickman and Katie Lindstrom so that we can plan the right amount of food and beverage.

posted by Webmaster

Stewards' Council Kickoff!

We will be holding our Stewards' Council spring semester kickoff meeting on February 8th at 6:30 PM at the TAA office. You're invited to attend to get involved in the crucial work of our Stewards' Council this semester as we organize around out contract negotiations, Segregated Fees, and building our union.

Not a "steward"? No problem. "Steward" in the TAA is more like a term of art, not science. "Stewards" build and ensure the continued strength of our union across campus. In the past, "steward" has meant a singular person by department. But now, we are approaching this more ecumenically, with "stewards" being the activist-leaders for the union.

The kickoff is going to be a great event -- not quite a meeting, not quite a party. We're going to plug into the work of the union for the spring semester on our organizing projects. We're going to make decisions on particular pieces in the framework of our organizing plan. We're going to get to know one another better and have a good time doing it. And yes, we're going to have food and beverage for all.

The Kickoff itself will start at 6:30 PM. But at 6 PM, we'll do a run-through of what went down at our TAA Leadership Retreat from two weeks ago. We'll serve food at 6 PM as we cover the material from the retreat.

We want everyone who's been involved in the union, or is interested in getting involved, to be there. Make sure to let us know that you'll be there. RSVP to our Stewards' Council Co-Chairs Ari Eisenberg and Katie Weigel or be in touch with them if you have any questions.

posted by Webmaster

General Membership Meeting: February 4th

January 27, 2010

Our first General Membership Meeting of the spring semester will take place...

Thursday, February 4th
5:30 PM
2231 Humanities

The agenda for this meeting will begin by finishing up the open business from our December General Membership Meeting, including handling Constitutional changes on non-discrimination and voting on fall semester officer stipends.

This meeting will also include an announcement about the spring conference of the Alliance of Graduate Employee Locals and a report from our ad hoc Segregated Fee workgroup, created at the December GMM.

posted by Webmaster

Grad School: Bad Decision?

January 11, 2010

One of the hotter pieces floating around and linked to in the higher ed and academic labor blogospheres of late has been Thomas Benton's piece in the Chronicle, "Graduate School In the Humanities: Just Don't Go.

We pass on the link for you to check out at your leisure. Note that it refers back to an historical piece Benton wrote as well, which you can find here.

While the narrative centers upon grad school in the humanities, the points he makes are relevant and can be extrapolated to grads in social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. Though it is tough to find short pieces that weave together all the disparate elements of the changing (and changed) nature of academia and the forces driving it (though longer pieces are in no short supply), Benton's piece from the Chronicle encapsulates many of the sentiments we hear from fellow grads at times.

Of course, most of us do not think that grad school was a bad decision. We're committed to the idea and ideals of academia -- many of us are just frustrated with what we find and the all-too-often sense of powerlessness we feel to do anything about these frustrations.

The TAA has a long and proud tradition, stronger at times than others, of positioning itself and acting as a vehicle to address some of the systemic problems in academia. Unions among academic workers like grads are systemic responses to these problems, capable of being countervailing institutions not only on instrumental, 'transactional' concerns like wages and benefits for "casual" academic workers but also the 'transformational' concerns like a broader system-change, be it the casualization of academic work, the commodification of higher learning, and the market pressures on teaching and research. Unions provide agency for us as academic workers to no longer be powerless subjects of the forces swirling around us -- our union is our vehicle for collective action.

Now is the time for larger conversations to be happening among academic workers about the realities we face in a crisis economy, diminishment of the academy, and the nature of who we are and what we do. Pieces like that linked to above are part of the conversation, and ideally, are a spark for further concerted action to build the kind of space we want for the university and the academy-at-large.

posted by Webmaster

 

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