Graduate student workers at the University of Michigan have voted to authorize a strike if their ... [+]
Labor strikes are looming at three of the nations’s major universities, continuing the trend of increased union activism and success on American campuses that began with a prolonged strike at the University of California last November and has continued at scores of institutions ever since.
Now, campus workers at the Rutgers University, the University of Michigan and the California State University system appear ready to strike over a set of demands, including increased compensation, improved benefits, and better working conditions.
Rutgers University
Members of two unions at Rutgers University voted recently to authorize a strike by their members. The AAUP-AFT, which represent full-time faculty, graduate student workers and postdocs, and the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, which represents part-time instructors, both voted to authorize a work stoppage should ongoing contract negotiations with the university be unsuccessful. The strike would affect all three of Rutgers’s campuses at Camden, Newark, and New Brunswick. It would be the first faculty strike in the university’s 256-year history.
The dispute heated up this week when Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway sent an email to employees and students in which he stated that the university had offered a new contract with a salary offer "that exceeds the offer that the unions agreed to four years ago." Holloway added, "it is well-established that strikes by public employees are unlawful in New Jersey. We hope that the courts would not have to be called upon to halt to an unlawful strike. No one wants that, nor does anyone want faculty or others to go without pay during an illegal strike."
The AAUP-AFT fired back with a letter to its members calling Holloway’s message “misleading.” The letter continued, “We are disappointed that President Holloway chose to misinform the Rutgers community this afternoon—our students included—instead of joining us at the bargaining table to learn the facts about what we are proposing, as we have repeatedly invited him to do.”
University of Michigan
At the University of Michigan, the Graduate Employees’ Organization, which represents graduate student instructors and staff assistants, officially voted this week to authorize a strike after failing to reach agreement with the university on a new contract following five months of negotiations. According to The Michigan Daily, 95% of members voted to authorize a strike.
Among a long list of demands including changes in class size, scheduling, and law enforcement actions on campus, the union was asking for 60% wage increase in the first year of a new contract and additional increases in the second and third years. In response, the university had offered an 11.5% increase in total raises over the next three years (5%, 3.5%, 3%).
In a letter to the campus community on Friday, University Of Michigan President Santa Ono and Provost Laurie McCauley said they were disappointed in the vote, but added, that if a strike occurs, “the University will continue to hold classes as scheduled. Our school, college, and department leaders are planning for substitute instructors, alternative assignments, and other means for delivering instruction if it is required. There would likely be visible activism on the campus and we respect the right of any group to peacefully advocate for their positions.”
However, Ono and McCauley also wrote that “the university will take appropriate lawful actions to enable the continued delivery of our educational mission in the event of a work disruption. Those actions will include asking a court to find a breach of contract and order strikers back to work, stopping the deduction of union dues, filing unfair labor practice charges, and not paying striking GSIs and GSSAs for time they do not work.”
California State University
At California State University (CSU), the nation’s largest public university system, almost 60,000 workers across the system’s 23 campuses have come together with a set of demands for increased pay, better benefits and improved working conditions. The movement includes staff and faculty members, represented by seven unions that have formed the CSU Labor Coalition. While a strike has not yet been authorized, it appears the unions are preparing to take that step.
The major issue at CSU is compensation. A review conducted last year found that CSU workers’ salaries averaged 12% below market rate, with some job families as much as 20% below market. At one time, CSU gave “step-based” raises to staff, but that system was eliminated in 1996. The workers are calling for it to be reinstated.
According to reporting in The Sacramento Bee, the Teamsters proposed step raises to CSU in January. According to the union, the university countered with an offer of 2% raises. This week the Teamsters filed an Unfair Labor Practices charge against CSU claiming it had engaged in bad faith bargaining regarding wages and that it had “delayed bargaining over this key issue, failed to submit a coherent proposal, and failed to explain its single incoherent proposal on this issue.”
This latest round of labor activism on campus is occurring in a climate where unions across various industries are successfully flexing their muscles. A deleted workforce, inflationary pressures, and the pro-union sentiments of the Biden administration have given them increased confidence and leverage. The flurry of campus organizing is only going to continue as college staff and faculty ramp up their fight for better pay and benefits.
