Lee Cruz Photo
The pre-election get-out-the-vote rally.
Twenty-five years after their first attempts to form a union, some of Yale’s graduate student teachers will finally get their chance to vote for one this week, while the university is asking Washington to reconsider allowing the election to take place.
The election takes place this Thursday. Graduate student teachers in nine out of 50 academic departments will vote whether or not to be represented by UNITE HERE Local 33, a new offshoot of Yale’s blue- and pink-collar unions (and formerly known as “GESO”).
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ordered the election in a Jan. 25 ruling that sided with Local 33 in a dispute with Yale about whether such an election should cover just nine, rather than all, academic departments. (Click here for a full story on that.) Yale argued that all 2,900 graduate student teachers have common enough interests to constitute a single bargaining unit; Local 33 argued that each department has its distinctive issues and interests and merits its own union local. About 300 students will be eligible to vote Thursday.
The students will be able to cast ballots from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. The election will take place at two different locations. Members of the East Asian Languages & Literatures, English, History, History of Art, Political Science, and Sociology Departments will vote at Dwight Hall at 67 High St. Members of the Geology & Geophysics, Math, and Physics will Founders Hall on 135 Prospect St. The NLRB will conduct and oversee the elections.
The story won’t end after the elections. On Feb. 15 Yale filed a “request for review” with the NLRB’s Washington office appealing the New England regional office’s ruling on the “micro-unit” election. “In this case, Yale continues to believe that Local 33’s petitions for these nine micro-units are inappropriate, and that the Regional Director’s decision was incorrect and without precedent in higher education. The recent graduate students elections at Columbia and Harvard were school-wide elections,” stated Yale spokesman Thomas Conroy.
Hundreds of grad students and members of UNITE HERE Locals 34 and 35 packed the United Church on the Green last Wednesday for a “Rally for Our Allies” get-out-the-vote rally. Chanting “I believe that we will win!,” Local 33 President Aaron Greenberg, who is also a city alder, led the crowd in chanting “I believe that we will win!” under an orange banner of streamers and balloons. Mayor Toni Harp addressed the rally.
The Graduate Student Assembly is on record opposing the union drive.