The Graduate Employees Union gained collective bargaining power Friday afternoon, when graduate students voted in support of the newly formed labor organization.
“We’ve worked really hard and we’re glad that everybody was really supportive,” said Chris Oliver, president of the union.
The union, affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO, presented a petition to the Michigan Employment Relations commission on Feb. 12 requesting collective bargaining power.
The election was held as a result of an agreement reached between the union and MSU on March 22. The agreement determined who would be eligible to vote and set dates for the election.
When the counting was over, there were 662 votes in favor of unionization and 192 against.
The 1,500 graduate students appointed as teaching assistants were the only ones eligible to vote in the election. Research assistants and teaching assistants at MSU-Detroit College of Law are not part of the collective bargaining unit.
But that doesn’t mean members of the union can rest easy yet. The results must still be certified by the Michigan Employment Relations Commission, which could take up to two weeks.
“There’s a lot of work to do,” Oliver said. “There’s 1,449 TAs and obviously in the end we’d like to see everybody become members.”
Oliver also said he’s looking forward to contract negotiations with the university.
Psychology graduate student Jessica Goodkind said Friday’s victory felt good.
“It’s been almost a year and it’s been a lot of hard work, but it’s also been really amazing work,” she said. “Helping other people stand up for themselves and standing with them is a great feeling.”
Bob Banks,assistant vice provost for Academic Human Resources, said although he would have liked to see more people cast ballots, those that did were very informed of the issues.
Although university officials have said collective bargaining power for graduate students is unnecessary, they are ready to go into negotiations.
“We appreciate that folks have reviewed and studied the issues and come and vote,” Banks said. “We’ll look forward to working to negotiate a collective agreement at some point in the future.”
