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A new year, a new petition on COVID policies from @VandyGradUnion. I signed this petition proudly. Here are some of my thoughts on why naming our issues as grad workers is an important step in making our university a better place to work (1/10): https://vandygwu.com/vgwu-list-of-demands-for-the-spring-2021-semester/
The grad body authored this – in town halls, in organizing meetings, and in survey responses. This petition is a democratically sourced document that articulates a vision for how to address the major problems VU grad workers have been facing before & during COVID. (2/10)
What does a petition do? It certainly won't immediately get us everything we want. @VandyGradUnion did a similar petition in the spring that got 700+ signatures and we did not get the 1-year $$ extensions and other measures we wanted. So why try it again? (3/10)
One reason to do it again is that it keeps the issues alive for the administration: this second COVID petition is a reminder that, almost a year into this pandemic, they haven’t yet delivered what we need and we aren’t going to forget that fact. (4/10)
Another reason is that it keeps the issues alive for us: by naming them, we recognize that we don’t have to accept these as unalterable features of our work. We have been consistently raising these concerns for the last year; we deserve to see action. (5/10)
A petition is not the same as direct negotiations. That’s why @VandyGradUnion is forming a labor union. It’s a long process; a lot of people need to be included. But our goal is to win recognition so that we can compel the admin to enter into collective bargaining with us. (6/10)
Collective bargaining means negotiating directly with administrators who make financial decisions over what goes into our employment contracts. It is a mechanism of exerting more democratic influence than we currently have over the work issues that most impact us. (7/10)
In 2020, through collective bargaining, @GradLaborOrg (Brown U) secured a commitment to 1-year funding extensions for grad students who had advanced to candidacy by the time of the pandemic. And @WeAreGAGE (Georgetown U) won big stipend increases for PhD students. (8/10)
This petition is a significant step toward articulating the vision we will need when we get to collective bargaining. We have more work to do to get to that stage, but if you follow @VandyGradUnion, you know that much of the hardest work is already behind us. (9/10)
By signing your name on this petition, you commit to this democratically assembled vision of a better Vanderbilt. And if you want to do more than sign your name, go to http://www.vandygwu.com to find out how to get to work on building this union in your department. (10/10)
