Spring 2010 Membership Drive

Rutgers AAUP-AFT Spring 2010 Membership Drive

Contest Rules and Organizing Details

Contest Dates: March 22-April 30.

Why now?

Strong member support is always critical to our success as a union, but the TA/GA Steering Committee is making a special push for new members because we see especially difficult challenges ahead. Facing a poor economic climate and an unfriendly administration in Trenton, our health benefits are being threatened and we need all the support we can get going into contract negotiations next year. University administrators and state legislators notice when we have high membership numbers: they know it means we don’t just represent academic workers at Rutgers—we are the academic workers of Rutgers, and we truly speak with one voice.

Who is eligible?

Rutgers AAUP-AFT represents all full-time faculty, part-time lecturers, TA/GAs, EOF counselors and postdoctoral researchers at the university. All employees currently holding one of those positions are eligible to join the union, and eligible to participate in the contest! The only exceptions are paid Organizing Fellows and staff working for the union.

How do I sign? And how do I sign others?

Membership applications are available for download at http://www.rutgersaaup.org/join.htm or for pickup at the AAUP-AFT office, 11 Stone St., New Brunswick, NJ 08901. You may return completed forms to that address, fax them to (732) 964-1032, or scan and email them to taga@gsa.rutgers.edu.

You may also return forms to:

• Busch Campus: Lisa Klein, Engineering Building A225.
• Camden: Pamela Clark, EOF Office, Armitage 359.
• Newark: Ed Boylan, Math Department, Smith Hall 216.

For contest credit, write “Referred by: _________” and your name at the top of the form.

NOTE: The form has a line for the Social Security Number, but new members DO NOT need to fill this out.

How does the contest work?

For the first form you return with your name in a “referred by” line (besides your own if you’re not already a member), and for every fifth form thereafter, you get one entry into a drawing for an iPod Nano in your choice of colors. (If you return five forms, that’s two entries; ten forms gets you three entries; and so on.)

The top organizer overall wins her/his choice of an iPod Touch or an iPhone. [To qualify for the iPhone, you must meet requirements for an AT&T rate plan featuring the promotional price for the phone. The winner pays service costs.] The Touch/iPhone winner is not eligible for the Nano drawing—you don’t get two iPods!

Everyone who returns 50 valid memberships or more wins a new netbook valued at $350-400. Winners may choose among selected models.

Whom should I ask?

EVERYONE! The fact is, lots of people think they’re already members—but they’re wrong! So getting them to sign a form actually helps them to do something they thought they’d done already!

Target Groups:

While everyone is eligible, we expect to see the biggest gains among TA/GAs and postdoctoral researchers.

Graduate employees (TA/GAs) are signed in especially low numbers on the Newark and Busch campuses. Chances are your friends are not yet members! On Newark, almost no one is signed.

Postdocs are a newly organized bargaining unit. Almost none of them have been signed as members yet!

What do I say?

The conversation is easy. Most people think they’re members already. But here are a few quick notes:

Remind your friends that great contracts and effective lobbying efforts in Trenton depend on their membership. Our strength is in numbers! And with threats to health care and other issues on the horizon, it’s never been more important for us to be united!

For TA/GAs, remind them of some of our most important victories:

• 8% or higher raises for the last eight contract years—and we protected this year’s raise when the university tried to deny it.
• Quality health care benefits—now threatened by lawmakers in Trenton.
• Strong workload protections.
• Tuition remission that includes all student fees.

For postdocs, tell them how important membership is during negotiations for their FIRST CONTRACT!

If they think they’re already a member, how do I know?

Ask them if they’ve ever signed a form. If they’re not sure, ask them to sign anyway—they can’t pay dues twice, and it only takes a minute!

If they’re a member, they’ll see a deduction on each paycheck for “AAUP dues.” If they’re not a member, they’ll still see a deduction—but it will say “AAUP rep fee.”

What are the dues, anyway?

All employees except for postdocs already pay a “representation fee” that comes to 85% of full member dues—so becoming a member only adds another 15%. For our target group, TA/GAs, the difference is about $20/year, or between 91 cents to 96 cents per paycheck—so it’s not about the money, it’s about showing support!

Our other target group, postdoctoral researchers, don’t pay any dues at all! For them, signing up is free! They’ll only start paying dues once they have a contract, and they’ll get to vote on the dues rate before that happens.

Is there anything else I should know?

Don’t harass or coerce anyone into signing. They should sign, because it’s good for them and it’s good for all of us. But if we find out you’re twisting arms just to win cool prizes, you’ll be disqualified from the contest.

Any other questions, contact Elric Kline at taga@gsa.rutgers.edu.

GOOD LUCK!!!

Activist of the Month: Diana Ortiz

Okay, it’s been a while… a busy semester, which is no real excuse. Anyway, the Graduate Employee blog returns! For our first new post, it’s fitting we should recognize one of the people who has kept things moving the last few months.

It’s a testament to how much progress we’ve made this year, how much more visible we’ve become, that new membership forms come into the office at a steady rate… and as I flip through the forms each week, it seems I always find at least a few reading “Referred by Diana Ortiz” at the top. Diana is our department rep in Environmental Science, but we get membership forms referred by her from all over.

Thanks, Diana! We need more like you!

Rutgers-Newark, here we come!

Last Wednesday I took a contingent of graduate employee activists up to Rutgers-Newark to get the ball rolling on the same kind of ambitious organizing we’ve been doing at the New Brunswick campus–and the turnout was incredible! The great majority of grads we encountered came looking for us! They had read the emails, seen pictures of our awesome new planners and T-shirts, and they couldn’t stay away! We wound up signing about 10% of our Newark graduate employees just by sitting at a table all day!

Of course, there were some snags. Despite the best efforts of Jamie Gorman, the very helpful president of Newark’s Graduate Student Government Association (GSGA), our table reservation never went through! After negotiating promises from Student Center staff that a table would eventually be forthcoming, I was not optimistic it would be any time soon… so we just jury-rigged this setup with our banner taped between a small study table and a convenient section of wall. I think it came out pretty well, myself… but a few hours later a grumpy Facilities manager thought differently. “Who’s in charge here?” he demanded. Everyone looked at me–and it’s a good thing the union has made me a well-rehearsed organizer with finely tuned interpersonal skills! (Hint, hint: sign up for one of our trainings!) Really, he was ready to kick us out of the building… but with an overdose of humility and some fast words, I had him drumming up a real table in no time–and we got a more lucrative space out of it, right next to the Food Court!

It was a good day. We met a lot of grads excited about what we’re doing, and at least one committed activist who wants to take charge of our efforts in Newark. Fantastic! I can’t wait to see what she comes up with!

Union: We make do with what we can get... until we talk you into giving us more!

It’s the little things…

I walked into the Stop & Shop in Highland Park Saturday morning to grab a few things for the day, and I happened to be wearing my union shirt–one of my favorites, of course… and what do you know! I ran into another member, also wearing his shirt! Two of us in one place, off campus, no event planned… but having a presence.

I know, it’s nothing. But sometimes it’s those little things that tell me something is catching on! Members wear their shirts proudly–and non-members, too! Undergrads, administrators, parents… when we’re handing them out at orientations or other events, people always ask, “How much does one of those shirts cost?”

“Nothing!” I say, to their surprise. “We’re happy to have anyone sporting our logo, supporting the cause!”

Stop by the AAUP-AFT office any time to grab one of your own–and a planner, too! Say hi to the staff, who will help you find something in your size… and if you’re a TA/GA and not already a member, sign up while you’re at it!

Get your T-Shirt and daily planner today!

Featured Activist: Anil Yazici, Civil Engineering

There are a lot of amazing people in the union, but every once in a while someone really stands out. Anil Yazici is one of those people.

Anil has been around for a while, but like many of us he came to union activism relatively late; maybe it just takes a few years to appreciate just how much the union has done–and how much more we have yet to accomplish.

Anil works in Civil Engineering, where organizing has been difficult for us; the math and science people over on Busch just seem to speak a different language than the rest of us! Anil speaks their language–and he has them signing up in droves!

Every time we stop by his office, Anil has apologies for us: “I’m sorry, but I could only get five new members this week.” Really! If everyone were signing five new members a week, we’d have been at 100% membership ages ago!

Anil has everything we want in an activist. He’s passionate, smart, and friendly–really, his charm will win you over instantly. He’s inspiring, in large part, for how little time  he has to spend organizing: he just talks to his friends, and mentions the union to new people he meets. Grads in engineering know who he is, and know they can talk to him about the union.

That’s all we need, really. We can’t all be as successful as Anil… but we can all talk to our friends, right?

Solidarity with Maryland Grads and Adjuncts!

While graduate employees at Rutgers University have enjoyed the benefits of collective bargaining since 1972, the unfortunate fact is that the vast majority of  Teaching and Research Assistants in the United States remain unorganized–or their unions unrecognized–in a situation that perpetuates the most perverse kinds of exploitation of graduate employees at universities across the countries.

There are places where full-time research assistants don’t get tuition waivers! There are large universities at which graduate employees are paid $5000 or less for full-time work!

At private universities, the legal status of graduate students makes collective bargaining, in most cases, essentially impossible. But even at major public universities, the myth that we work only as “apprentices” or “students”–hence not employees–persists, and state legislators turn a blind eye to the plight of thousands of underpaid and undervalued graduate workers.

But the fight continues. In Maryland, the state legislature recently commissioned a working group composed of university administrators, professors, adjuncts and union representatives, along with the Maryland Secretary of State, to consider the status of grads and adjuncts in the state university system. On Monday, at the invitation of Maryland graduate employees, I offered testimony on the experience of the graduate union at Rutgers, along with Lisa Klein (immediate past president, Rutgers AAUP-AFT) and Karen Thompson (AAUP-AFT staff and long-serving Rutgers adjunct).

The arguments from opponents of unionization–who insist grads are not “employees” and adjuncts are adequately served by faculty governance–were downright absurd. The provost from the College Park campus insists that organized grad labor would damage the “mystical” relation between students and faculty mentors. Another university president insisted, apparently because she’d read a Wikipedia article somewhere, that she simply “knows” graduate workers are “really” students.

I’m happy to say that testimony from Rutgers representatives was extremely well received! We turned heads, and by all indications we may have changed minds! We are, once again, true leaders in the faculty union movement.

For my part, I emphasized that the “gold standard” of graduate education, from the perspective of a student, has nothing to do with the (admittedly often valuable) “learning experience” of leading discussions and grading papers. No, the most ambitious among us want, if we can get them, competitive fellowships and scholarships offered by universities and a variety of government and non-government agencies.

“The rest of us,” I said, “need to work to put ourselves through school.” Assistantships are attractive because they offer, much of the time, benefits such as tuition waivers; and they keep us close to campus, close to our research and university resources. And, often enough, they do provide work experience in the kind of laboratory or teaching environment we envision for our future careers.

But, I reminded the committee, it is far from universally true that graduate employees even work in their field of study. After two years as a political science TA, I told them, I now work for the English department teaching expository writing. A friend in my department teaches for Women’s and Gender Studies. Many TAs for General Biology intend careers as research scientists who have no intention of teaching. We work in whatever department has the money to pay us, and we do it to fund our education… wherever that might happen to be.

I also had to take some shots at the smug provost from College Park, very much opposed to the possibility of unionization. First he goes on about how much effort the University is putting forth to raise TA stipends, but “the money just isn’t there!” This while they’re paying minimum salaries of $13,000/year! I explained to the committee that this is inevitably the management mantra: “No money! No money!” But our role as a union has been to point out, consistently, that the money IS there (when they’re bothered to look),  and in the long run it benefits the university to offer competitive salaries to the most qualified and promising graduate students. I rattled off a list of our accomplishments in salary and benefits. They were astounded that “graduate school” is not, in fact, synonymous with “poverty.” It doesn’t have to be this way.

But he also put forth the most absurd and amateurish statistical analysis to dispute numbers offered by a UM graduate student at the last meeting. “Our 10-year graduation rate will be much higher,” he offered, “in two years… because the cohort that started 8 years ago is graduating at a very strong rate!”

Umm… GOOD FOR THEM!! But you don’t have to be a professional statistician to know that one good year does not constitute a trend! I really raked him over the coals for that one, and even his allies seemed to enjoy it.

Afterward, another provost told me, “I found your testimony very compelling.” Sometimes even the privileged and powerful can see the light.

Maryland grads and adjuncts, we hope you win by a landslide!!

SOLIDARITY!! TOGETHER WE ARE STRONGER!!!

Pictures from Orientation

As promised, you can now enjoy photos of this year’s incredible Orientation activists. I wish I could have taken more, but during all the real action I was too busy signing new members! And I can hardly complain about that, right?

The Early Morning Crew: Joseph Dwyer, Carolina Espinosa, Justin Sharber, Allie Graham, Alvin Chin, and (looking the wrong way!) BJ Walker

Outside the Student Center: Allie Graham, Carolina Espinosa, Mieke Paulsen Bahmer, Yun Jiang, Carlos Diuk, Di Li

Look at all that red! Jiawei Sun, Di Li, Alvin Chin, Cathy Stanford, Mieke Paulsen Bahmer, BJ Walker, Rich Moser, Yun Jiang, Carlos Diuk.

Pictured here with their new planners: Jennifer Wang, Carlos Diuk, Vaughn Anderson.

Joseph Dwyer, astounded at the Steering Committee's great plans this year!

Diana Ortiz, checking out the party schedule.

Orientation: We kicked ass!!

Wow. Last year at Orientation we had a handful of activists–hard workers, people we knew, people we expected. Year before that, same thing–the Steering Committee was out. And of course we did it: people signed, TAs and GAs got the union message, the work for us went on.

But this year… WOW!! Were you out on College Ave Thursday morning? Did you go to new TA Orientation? Then you saw dozens–yes, dozens of activists in red shirts handing out free planners and signing new members to the union! I was especially impressed to meet so many new activists, responding to calls over email and on Facebook, out to support the cause. There’s powerful energy in the air… and we’re only just getting started!

In the coming weeks, look for announcements about our Labor Day BBQ, free beginner yoga classes, film nights, and more! Learn how you can win great prizes for signing your friends!

And if you haven’t signed up yet, complete your application today: http://www.rutgersaaup.org/join.htm.

Pictures and new member numbers forthcoming shortly!

Planner Pictures!

Charlotte took some great pictures of the new planner.

Don’t they look amazing?! I’m so proud of these…

Use your worklog to track hours each week. Remember: full-time employees may NOT be required to work more than an average of 15 hours per week, and half-time employees may NOT be required to work more than an average of 7.5 hours per week!

In addition to major national and religious holidays, we include significant dates in progressive history and the life of Rutgers unions.

The planner includes useful information about Rutgers, the union, how to contact us in case you have questions, and more! If you’re already a member, use the form in the back to sign one of your friends. Every voice matters, and together we are stronger!

Get yours today! We’ll be handing them out during TA Orientation, all day Thursday, August 27 near the Student Center on College Ave. We’ll have some at our Labor Day BBQ at Antilles Field (behind Voorhees Chapel on Douglass Campus) on Sept 7… but if you just can’t wait, let us know! We’re happy to drop one by your office when it’s convenient for you.

Grad salaries versus unemployment.

Check out the new post at Ph.D. Comics. As if we didn’t already know we’re exploited!

But then, that’s what unions are for! To think, when I started at Rutgers I was making less than the average you see above… and now? Calendar-year appointments are pushing $30,000/year! As they should!

So, what ARE we going to ask for in our next contract?