Word: ras
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...graduate student unions spring up across the country’s campuses, administrators at nearby University of Massachusetts-Amherst are confronting the even more frightening reality of a student labor force composed of undergraduates. The resident assistants (RAs) there voted last March to unionize, meaning that their compensation and conditions of employment would be determined by collective bargaining. These undergraduates, who enforce dorm rules, advise students and coordinate events, are demanding a voice in how their job is done and what they get in return. The university ought to welcome them to the bargaining table...
...university’s continuing refusal to recognize and bargain with the union showcases its priorities: pocketbooks over principle. The RAs are students employed by the university, performing services for which they are paid a certain amount. In the relationship between the university administration and the RAs—the latter represented by their democratically selected union—power should not rest solely on the side of the administration...
...university, however, insists that RAs are only students and not employees and have no right to organize. The Massachusetts Labor Relations Commission ruled against the school last January and ordered that a vote on unionization be conducted among the RAs. The commission pointed to several facts: RAs sign an employment contract, work about 20 hours a week and receive weekly paychecks. Also, their compensation is calculated to meet the minimum wage, and taxes are deducted. To distinguish RAs from the graduate students at UMass-Lowell who had not been deemed employees, the commission pointed to the fact that RAs undergo...
This month the words student union acquired a more militant ring when the RAs voted to affiliate with United Auto Workers Local 2322. They became the nation's first group of unionized undergraduate employees, after the university, which opposed unionization, lost a ruling before the Massachusetts labor-relations commission. The vote forges a bond between Generation Y2K and the graying labor movement...
...Umass RAs each receive a $5,100 compensation package, most of which goes to a room-cost deduction; students say they are left with $50 in cash each week. RAs' perks--large solo rooms, free Internet access--will probably be at risk when the new union makes its expected demand for a pay raise. Union organizers argue that these threats existed before the vote. "Last semester an RA got fired because he missed a single staff meeting," says junior Cristal Cruz, 20, an RA and a union supporter. "It showed me we had no say and no security...