Iowa students to wear union label

Iowa World Bureau

This article was reprinted from the May 4, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

IOWA CITY, Iowa - In the largest union victory in more than a decade, 2,600 graduate teaching assistants and research assistants at the University of Iowa voted April 16 for representation by the United Electrical Workers (UE).

The workers will be represented by UE Local 896-Campaign to Organize Graduate Students (COGS). COGS had attempted to gain bargaining rights two years earlier but lost an earlier election by 100 votes due in part to a last minute disinformation campaign supported by the Daily Iowan, the campus newspaper.

Following that defeat a small core group kept the idea of unionization alive. Last October COGS affiliated with UE by a membership vote. The vote for UE was by a 10 to one margin over another union. Immediately after the affiliation, organizing for the second election began. In February, 1996 UE-COGS filed for an election.

The primary issues in the campaign were wages, child care and adequate health insurance. A rank and file committee formed with organizers in most of the university's 100 departments. The committee kept workers informed, fought the disinformation campaign and turned out the vote on election day.

Unionization of graduate students is a growing movement. More than 23,000 graduate employees nationwide are now organized into unions. UE-COGS received support from unionized grad students from other universities, including Michigan and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana where grad students had voted to unionize earlier this month. On the day of the vote grad students from the University of Wisconsin set up a table near the main voting site to answer questions and urge a yes vote.

An added boost to the campaign was received a few days before the vote when a full-page ad appeared in the Daily Iowan supporting the union. The ad was signed by hundreds of faculty, local labor leaders, and politicians, including popular Iowa City council member Karen Kubby and Sen. Tom Harkin.