Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act (TRACBRA)
From CGEU
[edit] How to help pass the Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act
This page is intended to be an organizing tool that enables as many graduate employee unions as possible to organize effectively in support of the Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act -- new federal legislation that would extend collective bargaining rights to private sector universities and colleges.
On this page, you will find instructions and sample documents that will allow you and your union to join the national campaign in support of the Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act. To get this legislation passed, we need to do all we can to show Congress that people care about this issue and actively urge our Senators and Representatives to co-sponsor and support the Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act. You and your union can do this by joining GSOC/UAW and a coalition of graduate employee unions organizing on behalf of the Act with the following two-pronged approach that consists of:
- Signing and circulating the online petition (available at: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/TA_rights/)
- Contacting Congress by email, phone, letter and office visit to urge them to co-sponsor and support the Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act
The Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act currently enjoys the support of many powerful legislators, including Senator Ted Kennedy, Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama, and Senator Hillary Clinton. International opinion is also on our side. This summer, the International Labor Organization, an agency of the United Nations, reaffirmed TA's and RA's internationally recognized right to form unions. The time's right -- now we have to make it happen.
To ensure that the actions we undertake in support of the Act are targeted and effective, GSOC/UAW will be coordinating the campaign in support of the Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act. If you or your union would like to organize on behalf of the Act or if you have any questions, please contact gsocuaw@gmail.com.
[edit] Coordinating Our Efforts Will Make All the Difference
Please keep the following guidelines in mind as you organize for the Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act:
- Please make sure to keep GSOC/UAW up to date on your correspondence and meetings with Senators and Representatives in Congress.
- Your union will need to take responsibility for requesting meetings with your district’s Congressional representatives. Your union is also responsible for mailing form letters of support from individual constituents.
When in doubt, please refer to the attached Logistics document to ensure that all of our work in support of the Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act is coordinated and effective.
[edit] Organize Your Membership! Sign and Circulate the Online Petition
To help make sure that the Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act passes in Congress and becomes federal law, please: Sign and Circulate the Online Petition! Go to: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/TA_rights/. The petition urges members of Congress to co-sponsor and support the Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act.
Because the Act is federal legislation, ANYONE -- regardless of whether you are registered to vote or a citizen -- can sign the petition, so please circulate widely.
GSOC/UAW will be routinely sending the petition to members of Congress. To prevent redundancies, please do not copy the online petition and send it to members of Congress without first coordinating your actions with GSOC/UAW.
A sample email that you can send to your membership to tell them all about the online petition and the Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act is provided below, as is a sample resolution endorsing the Act that you can introduce to your graduate student government or other official legislative body.
- Sample email to send to membership regarding TRACBRA
- Sample student government resolution endorsing TRACBRA
[edit] Incorporate the Online Petition into Your On-the-Ground Organizing Efforts
You can also ask people to physically sign copies of the petition. If you choose to do this, please remember that the power of the online petition lies in its public visibility and it's all about the numbers. Please take the time to enter manually any signatures you collect into the online petition or arrange to send signed petitions to GSOC/UAW so that their staff can manually enter the names. Contact GSOC/UAW at gsocuaw@gmail.com to confirm whichever arrangement you choose. A copy of the petition text, a sample rap and a Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act FAQs are included below.
[edit] Want to Do More?: Email, Call, Write, Visit!
We are also writing letters to and arranging meetings with our membership’s Congresspersons. Because we believe that this bill will lead to great progress for the graduate employee labor movement, we hope that you will join us by contacting and meeting with the people who represent your district in Congress. For a faster response, send letters to your Congressperson's District Office.
While an email is better than nothing, letters tend to carry more weight with members of Congress. Handwritten letters are the most effective, but form letters are also useful in keeping Congress informed of what we want. While phone calls to your Congressperson are also helpful, arranging a personal office visit is probably the most effective action you can take.
[edit] How to Submit Form or Handwritten Letters to Congress
- Identify Your Congresspersons.
- To locate a Representative, go to https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml and enter the zipcode and four digit zipcode extension.
- To find Senators, go to http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.
- If your union is collecting signatures on form letters that urge Congresspersons to support the Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act, then your union should follow the above steps to make sure the letters reach Congress. Please let GSOC/UAW know if you are using form letters and also how many you send and to whom you’re sending them.
[edit] How Your Union Can Plan an Office Visit:
- Contact your union representative and let them know you would like to visit your Congressperson.
- Your union representative should then fax the Scheduler at your Senator’s or Representative’s District Office with a short summary of the subject you wish to discuss [Please see the “Sample Fax Requesting a Meeting with your Congressperson” document].
- You union representative should request, if at all possible, to meet with the Congressperson and not with the staff.
- After your union representative has faxed the Scheduler, your union representative should place a follow up call to the Scheduler.
- If your union representative is requesting a meeting in the District (as opposed to D.C.), please plan to be available during a “District Work Period,” i.e., when Congress is in Recess.
- Once a meeting has been scheduled and after it has taken place, please update GSOC/UAW. If meetings end with the Congressperson still not completely sure that they want to co-sponsor or vote for the legislation, our allies working in Washington can seek them out and work on changing their minds.
- If a meeting with a Congressperson ends with a pledge to co-sponsor the legislation, use THOMAS, the legislative database of the U.S. Congress, to confirm that they have followed through and officially entered their support. Go to: http://thomas.loc.gov/.
