Yale-Columbia strike and Aussies

Date: 15 April 2005

Grad students at two top Ivy League US universities - Yale and Columbia
- have voted for a five-day strike starting Monday - 'cause they're demanding the right to organise a union.

The Bush-run National Labor Relations Board recently stripped the graduate teaching and research assistants of their legal protections for organising unions at private US universities.

In a partisan 3-2 decision, the three appointees of President Bush denied these workers union rights - and struck a major blow to the freedom of association enshrined in the US constitution.

This dispute - which is becoming a high-profile fight - involves several Australians playing key roles in the union-rights campaign.

Among them:

- Brangwen Stone, a graduate student in the Yale German Department and a graduate of the University of Melbourne

- Daniel Mulino, a graduate teacher in the Yale Economics Department and a graduate of ANU (Arts/Law) and Sydney University (Master of Economics).

"I think that Australians should care about this fight because it seems like the US approach to labour is becoming more prevalent throughout the world."

Australia is especially on Yale's radar screen.

There are 31 students in Yale graduate schools from Australia - the twelfth largest population of international students by population at Yale-- including those from the Australian National University, Melbourne and Sydney University - and most of them are signed up union members.

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These unions are reaching across the globe to help win these fights at Yale and Columbia because these two Ivy League universities promote themselves as global institutions.

"Yale and Columbia are marketing themselves to the world in order to get cheap graduate labor. We want the world to know the real working conditions on campus", Ben Begleiter of UNITE-HERE said.

In recent weeks UNITE-HERE have informed the leadership of the National Tertiary Education here in Australia about the history of the dispute.

The NTEU has asked all their university branch activists to mount campus actions across Australia this coming week to show their support for this struggle.

The NLRB's decision to cut down union organising drives followed the desire of Presidents Levin of Yale and Bollinger of Columbia University.

Yale's President Levin has been a leader in opposing the unionisation of graduate teachers while at the same time, steering his university towards close alliances with for-profit corporations.

President Levin of Yale is particularly close to the Bush White House. Levin was the first overnight guest of the Bush White House and was appointed by Bush to the WMD Commission.

On both campuses, strong majorities of graduate employees have stated their preference to deal with these issues by forming a union and bargaining a contract with their employer.

This majority preference in favor of unionisation on both campuses has been certified by public officials in New York and Connecticut.

" Democracy has a place in every workplace," Bob Proto of UNITE/HERE Local 35, which represents service and maintenance workers at Yale, said.

" The goal of this job action is to convince administrators at Yale and Columbia to respect the rights of their own teachers."

The key issues in the dispute:

- A Living Wage for graduate teachers. Without a Living Wage many lower income students cannot afford to attend graduate schools. This is especially critical for married international students who, because of US labour law, are the sole source of financial support for their families

- Fighting for affordable healthcare for union members and their families.

- Fighting for visa reform to enable international students to travel to and from their home countries more easily.

- Fighting against racism, sexism and discrimination of all sorts. See the Yale Unions most recent report on women and minority hiring in Ivy League universities (Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton etc): www.yaleunions.org/geso/reports/Ivy.pdf

For further information

Research Analyst

UNITE HERE

425 College St

New Haven, CT 06511

Work 203-785-9407 ext. 307

Mobile 203-668-6676

Fax 203-776-6438 E-mailben@yaleunions.org

For further information

Contact:	Andrew Casey
Union:	Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union
Phone:	8204 7206
Fax:	92821 4480
Email:	andrewc@lhmu.org.au
WWW:	http://www.lhmu.org.au/

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