Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for April 10, 2006 SIU GRADUATE ASSISTANTS

...will vote soon to decide whether they want to unionize...and join the Illinois Education Association-NEA.

From the Southern Illinoisan...

Grad students to decide on unionization

BY: CALEB HALE
THE SOUTHERN

CARBONDALE - Graduate students on the Southern Illinois University Carbondale campus will decide whether they want to unionize before the end of the semester.

A news release sent late last week indicated the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board in Springfield has received the SIUC Graduate Assistants United formal petition for a union vote. The petition was filed April 5.

If approved, GA United will be a full-fledged employee union under the IEA/NEA umbrella. The group will have collective bargaining rights with university administration in matters of wages, benefits and working conditions. The graduate assistants are following in the footsteps of both tenured and non-tenured faculty on campus in unionization.

Shelly McGrath, one of the lead organizers of the union vote, said she expects the university will cooperate. She also said she is pleased at the response the group has gotten since beginning its drive for unionization.

"We easily reached our card drive goal in terms of numbers," McGrath said. "It's a big unit - more than 1,300 GAs - but our corps of departmental activists kept growing and kept talking to their colleagues. It was a fantastic outreach effort."

If the union is voted in, SIUC would join the University of Illinois, as well as several other institutes nationwide, in hosting organized graduate assistants.

caleb.hale@thesouthern.com