Letter from the GSRA Campaign: The Next Step

We’re writing with good news: on Tuesday, the Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC) set December 13 as the date for the next step in our path to a vote to form a union.

In a positive move, comments from a majority of commissioners indicated that the motion we presented in early October for reconsideration of our election petition has merit, and that MERC is likely to order a hearing on the merits when they meet on December 13.

The same majority expressed dismay over the efforts of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy to intervene in the election, stalling the process since a majority of GSRAs requested an election in April 2011, and indicated that they are likely to reject those efforts.

We are working to make sure that the remaining steps to the election go rapidly.

As Christie Toth, a GSRA at the Sweetland Center for Writing, says: “Whether or not any one of us wants to be represented by a union, I believe all GSRAs should have the opportunity to vote.”

GSRAs and GEO members are continuing to reach out to fellow graduate assistants with whom we haven’t yet spoken; every day, we’re meeting GSRAs who are excited to join the union and get involved.

We’re also beginning to prepare for the MERC hearing that’s likely to be ordered on December 13, in which we’ll need to present evidence about what GSRAs do and how we meet the legal requirements to be considered employees. We’ll continue to update you roughly once a week about the progress of the campaign.

If you’ve got questions or concerns about your GSRA position, about the progress of the campaign, or about what forming a union means to you–or if you want to get more involved in the campaign–please contact us at gsracampaign@geo3550.org. (Also, you can visit us at www.gsracampaign.org, friend us on Facebook–we’re UM GEO–and follow us on Twitter, where we’re @geo3550.)

Yours truly,