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UMass students vow ‘No contract? No peace!’

Published Apr 6, 2005 4:46 PM

Facing multi-faceted assaults by the administration and its class allies, and aware of the historic importance and national implications of this struggle, students and progressive campus community members at the University of Massa chu setts-Amherst responded March 31 with one of the biggest mass actions in years.


March 31 rally at University of
Massachusetts.

More than 600 graduate and undergraduate students, union allies and campus community members answered the call of the Graduate Employee Organi zation, UAW Local 2322, for a “march for fair wages, health care, benefits and childcare.” The march came in response to the administration’s refusal to bargain in good faith.

“We’re talking about sums that represent less than 1/1000th of the university’s budget. There will be no peace until we get a contract,” said Meghan E. McDonough, GEO family issues advocate, speaking on the steps of the Student Union while holding her infant.

GEO, with a membership of 2,400, has been working without a contract since
July 1, and has been bargaining with the administration for over a year. Other campus unions are in similar circumstances. The administration continues to propose real wage and health-care cuts, an end to health benefits for currently covered same-sex couples, and drastic increases in child-care costs.

GEO extended a hand of unity to undergraduate students by inviting their newly elected Student Government Association President Pavel Payano to speak at the rally. There are about 18,000 undergraduates and 6,000 graduate students on campus.

The increasing attacks on all students and campus workers is a focal point of the undergraduate student struggle led by the Take Back UMass coalition, which works with GEO. (www.takebackumass.com)

“What we see happening at UMass is part of a national, racist, right-wing-led, neo liberal agenda,” said Cassandra Enge man, GEO member and a Labor Studies graduate student. “UMass wants to depict us as students, not workers, so they can outsource faculty positions to graduate stu dents to save money. This isn’t only happening at UMass; it is happening to public universities throughout the country.”

No contract, no peace!

Students made use of whistles and of make-shift drums of pots, pans and five-gallon empty water containers as they took over the campus at lunch hour with a blocks-long march from the Student Union—a building won as a result of campus rebellions in the late 1960s—to the Whitmore administration building.

“Whose school? Our school!” they chanted.

Drivers along the campus’s main street honked their car horns in support.

A sea of blue placards reading “No contract? No peace!” and with other slogans such as “Students and workers unite” and “Undergraduates support graduate students” could be seen for blocks.

At the administration building, march ers, all the while filmed by campus police and undercover agents, proceeded to the offices of Chancellor John Lombardi and Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Michael Gargano to deliver petitions supporting GEO and undergraduate students.

Participants included members of AFS CME, the Massachusetts Nurses Asso cia tion, the Massachusetts Society of Pro fessors, members of Local 2322’s executive staff including President Ron Pate naude and Vice President John McGrath, the Million Worker Movement, the Nation al Writers Union, Pioneer Valley Labor Council President Ron Brown, Service Employees, Food and Commercial Workers, the University Staff Association and U.S. Labor Against the War.

The March 31 action was part of an ongoing GEO contract campaign that uses “grade-ins,” roving pickets, rank-and-file attendance at bargaining sessions, media strategies and building support in the undergraduate and larger campus community. If the administration continues its bad-faith bargaining, GEO plans on civil disobedience actions for April 21 and 22 and other actions.

Most unionized graduate students make on average about $15 dollars an hour, but this is only for 10- or 20-hour appointments. International students are restric ted to 20 hours of work a week by Depart ment of Homeland Security regulations, and graduate students do not receive grants.

These student-workers who teach, grade and conduct research are either barely surviving, going into debt, restricting their studies or ending their education. Having a union is what keeps many of these student-workers in school, especially the working-class and poor students of color.

According to GEO’s website (www. geouaw.org), if the administration’s current contract proposals were implemented, a typical graduate student’s family could be paying $5,000 more next year for the same child-care services. Health-care costs would quadruple over the next three years from $0 to a projected $508. The administration could also change the benefits at any time without negotiations.

The unity and solidarity displayed on March 31 are what’s needed to win a good contract, defeat the administration’s student organization restructuring plans and continue building a progressive united front at UMass and nationally, stressed Engeman.

Pfeifer is a Labor Studies graduate student and GEO member at UMass-Amherst.