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Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Chicago Grads Launch Culture-Struggle From Below
crossposted from howtheuniversityworks.com
“We theorize utopias and live a life of slaves.
All for an ounce of prestige…and some letters on our graves."
In 2004, the Bush mob’s infamous executive arrogance in the Brown decision jammed the brakes on the organizing of graduate student employees at private universities (previously green-lighted by a bipartisan unanimous NLRB decision consistent with the law governing grad employees at public institutions, affirming the victory of GSOC-UAW at NYU).
Despite the setback, organizing is once more on the front burner at private universities in the U.S., including by committed, activist grad employees at the University of Chicago, outraged by an unfair stipend arrangement and by some of the lowest wages for teaching in the country (as low as $1500 per quarter). As a result of graduate employee agitation, commonly through collective bargaining, 3/4 of university employers pay for graduate employee health insurance; the University of Chicago does not. Among the graduate employees that I met there last month was one whose earnings as a gardener offered far better pay than his teaching.
On May 2, the members of Graduate Students United announced a membership drive for an independent union with a philosophy of “active solidarity with other workers in the university and the community of which the university is a part.” Asking for annual dues of just $5, and leaving for later consideration such questions as possible affiliation with a national organization, the card drive netted 70 members at their first event and has an innovative membership structure relying on open organization and mass electronic referenda for significant decisions.
After a year of preliminary organizing, the group looks to the future with confidence. “Over the past year we organized 2 well-attended demonstrations, collected about 500 signatures on a petition with demands for the administration, and set up a basic organizational structure,” said organizer Joe Grim Feinberg. “We are optimistic about our chances.”
When I resume the video series in the next couple of weeks, I’ll begin with my recent interview with some of the Graduate Students United core organizers. I taped them singing one of Joe Feinberg’s songs for the union, conducting an intentional culture-struggle from below. It’s good stuff.
In the meanwhile, here’s some of the lyrics from a new piece he penned for the May 2 event:
Oh, graduate studying is the hardest work I’ve ever done.
It sucks away your spirit, and it kills all of your fun.
In exchange for future dreams you give up years and hours.
And while others walk through poppy fields…we live with paper flowers.
Whiles muscles wither in our arms we press our keys to dust.
We write about libido and forget about our lust.
We theorize utopias and live a life of slaves.
All for an ounce of prestige…and some letters on our graves.
We spend our youth in musty halls and laboratories cold.
We spend our nights in beds of books with lovers ages old.
Each day we say tomorrow then at last we will be free
Until we’re tenured and retired then…(then) we’ll finally live our dreams.
We dream of picking up our pens as swords to save the world.
Instead we work for warlords under flags of greed unfurled.
We teach of revolutions we forgot how to believe.
We’ve got to raise our pens to change…the University.
I am a graduate student and I wish the best to you.
Let’s get together and transform this system through and through.
For if we act in union there is nothing we can’t do.
Come one, come all, right now, come join…come join in GSU.
Give ‘em hell, Joe & co. Rumor has it, the Kennedy bill reversing the sleazeball work of the Brown decision--supported by both Obama and Clinton--was partly inspired by the U Chicago organizers, as well as by the continuing determination of the GSOC-UAW membership. I can believe it.
Next couple of posts: 1) thanks to the quality trolls, is it the end for minnesota review? 2) Update on McGill Joins the Bush League which has racked up 70 comments and counting.
Comments
Marc--love your reportage. Could you clarify whether you’re saying the Kennedy bill or the Brown decision was supported by both Obama and Clinton? I hope it’s the former.
Thanks, Josh. sorry for the slow response (spouse’s first mother’s day, spent a long weekend splendidly offline). You’re right; it’s the former! Solidarity, M