it's bizarre that the United Auto Workers is rapidly becoming an academic employees union
- they should be trying to organize all those non union auto and auto parts plants in the South
- those academic workers deserve a union of their own - or at the very least to have their own international vice president and union division within the UAW
We do have our own division in UAW, almost - the TOP division, Technical and Office Professionals, which we share with clerical, non-profit, and museum workers. TOP inherited a ton of organizing talent from District 65, which merged with UAW in the 1980s.
We have great relationships with the auto locals, and we collaborate a lot on politics. I think they sort of see us as part of the UAW's tradition of support for workers in different industries, like the UFW. I agree that we should be organizing the non-union auto sector though - hopefully those of us on the academic side can be part of making that happen.
You all should have your own sector, not just as part of TOP, which includes everybody else white collar in the UAW
TBH you all should have your own international charter
Back in the day, the Retail Wholesale Department Store Union had a pharmacists local in NYC that started organizing hospital workers
Pretty soon, the local was overwhelmingly hospital workers, and represented a majority of RWDSU's members, but they were stepchildren, healthcare workers in a retail union, their dues subsidized the union but they were outvoted by the locals they outnumbered
Eventually they seceded - for a while they were their own international union, now they're part of the SEIU
The same thing might happen here - the UAW has done an abysmal job of organizing non union auto workers - in part because conditions in the union plans have deteriorated to non union levels - a multi tier workforce where the lower tiers make poverty level wages and don't even have a pension, and then there's an even lower tier of temps - to workers like that, the UAW's talk of "Partnership" with management falls flat (they want and need a union to fight for them)
I could see a scenario where the grad students end up like 1199 did in the RWDSU back in the day - and that's not good for autoworkers or grad students
Remember, the UAW assisted the UFW...but the UFW was never a part of the UAW, they were - and are - an international union in their own right with their own charter and their own leaders
it's bizarre that the United Auto Workers is rapidly becoming an academic employees union
- they should be trying to organize all those non union auto and auto parts plants in the South
- those academic workers deserve a union of their own - or at the very least to have their own international vice president and union division within the UAW
We do have our own division in UAW, almost - the TOP division, Technical and Office Professionals, which we share with clerical, non-profit, and museum workers. TOP inherited a ton of organizing talent from District 65, which merged with UAW in the 1980s.
We have great relationships with the auto locals, and we collaborate a lot on politics. I think they sort of see us as part of the UAW's tradition of support for workers in different industries, like the UFW. I agree that we should be organizing the non-union auto sector though - hopefully those of us on the academic side can be part of making that happen.
You all should have your own sector, not just as part of TOP, which includes everybody else white collar in the UAW
TBH you all should have your own international charter
Back in the day, the Retail Wholesale Department Store Union had a pharmacists local in NYC that started organizing hospital workers
Pretty soon, the local was overwhelmingly hospital workers, and represented a majority of RWDSU's members, but they were stepchildren, healthcare workers in a retail union, their dues subsidized the union but they were outvoted by the locals they outnumbered
Eventually they seceded - for a while they were their own international union, now they're part of the SEIU
The same thing might happen here - the UAW has done an abysmal job of organizing non union auto workers - in part because conditions in the union plans have deteriorated to non union levels - a multi tier workforce where the lower tiers make poverty level wages and don't even have a pension, and then there's an even lower tier of temps - to workers like that, the UAW's talk of "Partnership" with management falls flat (they want and need a union to fight for them)
I could see a scenario where the grad students end up like 1199 did in the RWDSU back in the day - and that's not good for autoworkers or grad students
Remember, the UAW assisted the UFW...but the UFW was never a part of the UAW, they were - and are - an international union in their own right with their own charter and their own leaders