Fellow Grad Students, TAs, Researchers, Tutors, and Readers,

We have been notified by the United Auto Workers' staff that the UAW will conduct a student academic employee strike authorization vote on our campus starting this Thursday at 9 AM. The days, times and polling places are listed at the bottom of this message. Please distribute this important announcement to the graduate students in your department and elsewhere. This announcement is brought to you by United Student Labor. USL is an independent, UCSB student-run labor union that is committed to improving the working conditions of TA's, RA's, Readers, and Tutors, through democratic representation.

The UAW is calling for a strike authorization vote because UAW contract negotiations with the UC have failed to produce a contract. However, the people that the contract negotiations and the related strike authorization vote will affect most--that is, UCSB graduate students like you and me—have not had any input into this strategy. As many of you already know, we no longer have any elected representatives on the UAW bargaining team and, since November, the UAW has not even allowed us to observe the local negotiations here at UCSB. Furthermore, the UAW staff have refused to
provide any substantive information on the proceedings of the negotiations (e.g. to GSA President Grace Credo). And despite our repeated objections, the UAW has so far ignored our insistence that important contract items such as our right to strike, our protection from discrimination, and a variety of other important topics not be negotiated away without our informed consent.

The UAW was elected as our representative by only 184 UCSB graduate students.
Nearly as many students, 130, voted "no union" over the UAW. Furthermore, in 1997 in an election open to all members, the academic employees of UCSB voted to have a 50% quorum on union elections. Note that since this strike authorization vote has NO quorum, a handful of grads could vote to take all student employees out on strike. In short, the same people asking us to strike are the people who have repeatedly shown their total disregard for student's rights, democratic process, and even the UAW's own by-laws. We need to send a strong message to the UAW that we are aware of these abuses and that we are not willing to strike under these unfair conditions.

As student employees we strongly object to being shut out of our own contract negotiations by the UAW. We are outraged that the UAW staff is now asking us to strike for contract terms about which we know little, or for negotiations in which we have not been allowed to participate. Graduate student employees at UCSB have always been majority pro-union, but the UAW's antidemocratic practices violate the basic principles of unionism. It is time to send a clear message to both the UAW and the UC by turning out a solid "NO STRIKE" this Thursday and Friday. You should note that it is perfectly O.K. to sign a UAW membership card in order to vote; this will not affect any current of future USL membership.

In addition, many of us are committed to having a new election for union representation on this campus. In an effort to achieve a new union election, one that respects the 50% quorum and gives us more choices, United Student Labor is circulating a petition to the California Public Employment Relations Board, as required by California law. If you would like to support this important drive, please make sure you sign this petition.

Before you cast your vote this week ask the UAW staff at the polls the following questions:

• What contract are we striking for? What contract terms are we striking
  over?

• What terms has the UC offered and why exactly are the negotiations
  stalled?
• Can we see the contract before we vote to strike over it? Will we be given
  time to review said contract?
• What is the quorum for this vote?
• What happened to the previous quorum of 50% of the graduate student
  employees?
• Why haven't our elected student representatives been allowed participate
  in the negotiations?
• What did our elected bargaining team resign?
  
• Why is UAW willing to negotiate away our right to strike?
  
• Why did UAW drop discrimination from the contract's grievance procedures?
  
• Why was Berkeley's elected grad student bargaining representative Frank
  Wilderson arrested and removed from the negotiations?
  
• Will the UAW charge mandatory dues to all graduate students?