Recognition
Why voluntary recognition?
Under Maryland law, graduate student workers at public universities are not among the professions guaranteed a right to collective bargaining in the workplace (in contrast, Senate Bill 207, passed in 2001, explicitly grants public university staff this right, which is why UMD staff have representation through AFSCME 1072). A bill granting grad workers the right to collectively bargain has been brought before the legislature numerous times, including in every year since 2017, but has so far failed. Each time the bill is introduced, USM and UMD administrators, including the Provost and Dean of the Graduate School, testify against the bill.
Over 60 percent of UMD graduate student workers have now signed cards stating their support for GLU. Typically, if 30 percent of workers sign union cards, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) will hold an election, at which workers will vote on whether to form a union. Unions can also be formed by card check, under which if more than 50 percent of workers sign union cards, the employer may voluntarily recognize the union. However, because Maryland graduate student workers aren’t guaranteed a right to unionize, and there is no national policy recognizing collective bargaining rights for public employees, these thresholds do not apply to us.
Our paths to recognition are: 1. voluntary recognition by UMD and 2. changing legislation. In the past, UMD unionization efforts have pursued strictly legislative action with little to no organizing, with a handful of grads trying and failing to get a bill passed each year. Now, we have mass organization and supermajority on our authorization cards! Below are two case studies of unions who were in similar situations as ours and were able to put enough pressure on administrators to support collective bargaining legislation—but only after they had built on-the-ground power.
Case study: AFSCME 1072
Union recognition despite the law can happen, and in fact has happened on our campus before. UMD’s staff union, AFSCME 1072, is part of a history of majority Black public employee unions. AFSCME began organizing in 1966 and initially did not have collective bargaining rights with the university, but that didn’t deter its members from pushing for radical changes in their working conditions. As a predominantly Black union, AFSCME also fought for dignity in the workplace for its most vulnerable members: low-wage women and minority workers. During the 30 years AFSCME was unrecognized, they won and made use of collective grievance procedures, organized workers to use their sick days on the same days and leave their workplace unable to function, and filed legal complaints against UMD for racial and sex discrimination in wages, making sure the lowest-paid women were included in pay changes as a result of the sex discrimination suit. Eventually, AFSCME built enough power across campus that the Board of Regents voted to support collective bargaining legislation, and in 2001 staff workers in higher education were granted collective bargaining rights by the state.
Further reading on the history of AFSCME 1072
Case study: UAW Local 4121 (University of Washington)
Until 2002, Washington state did not have legislation that compelled universities to bargain with its academic employees, just like Maryland today. The University of Washington’s (UW) grad worker unionization efforts began in 1998, and by early 2000, they were running an authorization card drive. Over 80% of graduate assistants signed cards, and the union asked to submit the cards and gain voluntary recognition. UW refused. In May of 2000, UW grad workers ran a second card drive, which netted signatures from 84% of workers. Again, the university refused to recognize that a supermajority of graduate workers wanted a union. In the following fall semester, the union ran a strike authorization vote, with 86% of workers pledging to strike if the university did not recognize their union. Finally, the UW president, who had up until then opposed the campaign, pledged to help pass legislation which would grant grad workers the right to collectively bargain. The legislative session that year would end without a bill passing, and in response, TAs went on strike in the summer of 2001. The next legislative session, a bill granting collective bargaining rights to graduate student employees was passed, and UAW Local 4121 began representing graduate workers at UW, which continues to the present day.
Further reading on the history of UAW Local 4121