CGSU-UE negotiations


Dear Cornellians,

For the past several months, Cornell has engaged in productive contract negotiations with CGSU-UE, the union representing graduate students holding assistantship appointments at Cornell. As voted upon by graduate students last fall, Cornell Graduate Students United (CGSU) is a local chapter of UE, the nationwide United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America.

This week, our negotiating teams engaged on the key question of “union security.” CGSU-UE is demanding a “union shop” arrangement, under which union membership would be required, as a condition of employment, of all graduate student workers. In Wednesday’s negotiating session, Cornell made clear that it would not accept such an arrangement, which would be contrary to our university’s core values and would have grave consequences for many of our current and future graduate students. Unfortunately, union negotiators have chosen to respond to this considered position with hyperbolic rhetoric, likening the university and its bargaining team to union-busting fascists, racists, and Nazis. We would like to make clear to the entire community what is at stake here, and why the university has taken this position and is unwilling to agree to the union’s proposal as written.

The CGSU-UE has stated that a union shop is important to its membership and necessary to ensure the security of the union. We respectfully disagree on both counts.

Many graduate students and faculty have shared their concerns about CGSU-UE activities and the impact of a union shop arrangement, and asked that Cornell not agree to a collective bargaining agreement that would effectively compel graduate student workers to choose between joining UE and leaving their degree program. While representing the rights of Cornell graduate student workers, CGSU-UE also represents, advances, and supports UE’s political action on a range of consequential domestic and international issues including, most recently, the U.S. election and U.S. military aid to Israel. Accepting a union shop provision would mean requiring every one of our graduate student workers to affiliate with, and financially support, this advocacy. Typically, union dues support both representational activities and political advocacy.

Cornell’s proposal allows graduate students to make their own decision. For those students who elect to become members of the union, Cornell has offered to promptly carry out union dues deductions from graduate student workers’ stipends, beginning with the first full pay period following receipt of the student’s written authorization. This would facilitate the union’s ability to collect dues for those students who wish to authorize this deduction from their stipends on their behalf. Students who chose not to become members of the union would not be required to do so.

We want to be clear that Cornell is not opposing unionization of graduate student workers, and we are open to considering proposals other than the union shop that has been proposed. However, if the university were to agree to the union shop stipulation the CGSU-UE is now demanding, students who decline to join the union could be dismissed from their appointments and prohibited from holding future appointments. These students would no longer have a viable path to a degree at Cornell. Under the proposed union shop agreement, there is no option for students to remain graduate assistants if they object to joining the union. This would be deeply unfair to our students, incompatible with our commitment to academic freedom, and detrimental to our future ability to attract the most promising students to Cornell.

We look forward to continued productive conversations at the bargaining table and a contract in the best interests of all graduate students.

Sincerely,

Michael I. Kotlikoff
Interim President

Kavita Bala
Provost