UW Grad Students Join Auto Workers

The Graduate Student Employee Action Coalition/UAW announced recently that 80 percent of the University of Washington's 1650 teaching assistants, readers, and tutors have signed Union cards, selecting GSEAC/UAW to represent them in collective bargaining. The Union filed these cards at the state's Public Employment Relations Commission.

The Union conducted an organizing drive during the winter quarter at the University of Washington. With this announcement, GSEAC/UAW called on University President Richard McCormick to commence bargaining without delay.

Paywatch

The CEOs of multinational corporations are taking home tens of millions of dollars while driving down living standards for workers around the world, according to the AFL-CIO's Executive PayWatch website, with all-new numbers. GE's Jack Welch earned more than $90 million in 1999, while GE workers in China and India often are paid pennies an hour. The average U.S. CEO made $11.9 million last year, 476 times the average blue-collar wage, up from 85 times in 1990. PayWatch (www.paywatch.org) this year summarizes CEO pay at 1,500 of America's largest corporations. The site has tools to help users compare their pay with the boss's, and offers "action tools" to express concerns about runaway pay to company boards, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Internal Revenue Service and Congress.

Surprise! Work is Work

The National Labor Relations Board's New York region ruled April 3 that the work graduate teaching assistants do at New York University--grading papers, teaching classes, holding office hours--means they are indeed employees and may organize into unions. It's the first ruling of its kind that applies to private universities. "We are workers, and we deserve the right to vote for a union," said Laura Tanenbaum, a teaching assistant in NYU's expository writing program. The 1,700 graduate teaching assistants at NYU are trying to form a union with the UAW. "This historic ruling provides graduate teaching assistants with a fundamental right already held by nearly all of our nation's workers--the right to decide whether to form and be represented by a union," said UAW President Stephen Yokich.

Tacoma Labor Landmarks Tour

From Artisanship to Information Age: Lessons for Labor's Struggle is the theme of the prestigious annual labour history conference which will be held at the Washington State History Museum, 1911 Pacific Avenue, Tacoma, Washington from May 19-21, 2000.

In addition to the presentations and keynoters at the 32nd Annual Pacific Northwest Labor History Conference, two new items have been added to the agenda that should interest students, trade unionists and history buffs.

On Friday, 19 May at 3pm, registrants and others are encouraged to participate in a Labor Landmarks Tour. The tour, departing from the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma, will visit two memorable sites in the struggles of Tacoma working people.

At the approach to the Eleventh Street bridge during the 1935 lumber strike, the National Guard confronted pickets and supporters with gleaming bayonets, barring their way to the struck mills on the tide flats. Narratives and photographs will recreate the skirmish between pickets and soldiers.

The tour will proceed to the Commencement Bay Maritime Center on Dock Street. Artifacts, documents, and photographs trace the activity of the port from Native Americans in their cedar dugouts to giant container ships bringing cargoes from far places.