Special Lead Story

Every year, undergraduate and graduate students at Washington State University expend countless hours grading papers, doing research and teaching, among many, many other responsibilities. Why would they be interested in the United Auto Worker union?

Members of the Graduate and Professional Student Association (GPSA) have proposed the institution of a union for these students under the UAW. Approximately 1700 students would be eligible to enter the union including teaching assistants, graders, resident advisors and researchers, in addition to other students doing academic work for the university.

“This is the largest institution on the west coast that doesn’t have a union,” said Sky Wilson, a PhD candidate in American Studies and student organizer for the Academic Student Employee Coordinating Committee for UAW.

As an advocate for the union, Wilson says it will translate into having more power and more say.

According to Wilson, there were talks of a union long before he came to WSU, but it was only recently that students from all departments came together and contacted the UAW.

The GPSA sent the proposed bill for the union to the university, however, Wilson said it was not favored and they wanted to make amendments. Currently, in order to add more legality to the bill, it is going through the legislature in Olympia, where it has passed through the House.

“If the bill is passed, it would state that the university has to negotiate with the students in order to form a contract,” Wilson said. “We would elect a negotiating team that would negotiate the contract with the university.”

Regarding the recruitment of signatures from students which are needed to support the union, Wilson said the organizers went through a training process so they would all same the same, accurate information.

“It wasn’t a process of trying to convince people,” he said.

However, there have been reports of misrepresentation involving some of the organizers’ strategies when trying to gather signatures.

Matt Wiediger, GPSA senator and volunteer for the Union Fact Finding Committee said a student told him that an organizer came to them asking for their support of the union. When the student said no, the organizer asked them to sign a card to prove that they had been there. The student was not told they would now be represented by the UAW.

Wiediger said the student organizers are getting paid, but that’s common.

“It’s pretty normal because these people are putting in a lot of time and effort,” he said.

Wiediger added that the GPSA is using the University of Washington’s union contract as an example for what they want theirs to look like. He hopes that it will do more than just formalize their rights but will also improve some benefits like child care.

There is a possibility that the contract would increase the students’ pay by $20 a month, but the monthly union dues could also be $20 a month.

When each student is paying every month, “that’s a lot of money,” Wiediger said. “What’s that money going to do for us?”