UTGWU Weekly Newsletter: July 7 & 14

Voting on the updated role proposal is open now in the UTGWU Announcements chat on Signal!

Organizing Meeting Updates -- July 7, 14

At our July 7 meeting, we finalized our reevaluation of union roles.  The proposal for roles can be found here.  Elections will be held in October to give those joining the union at the beginning of the semester an opportunity to run, and term-length will be a year.  If there are any questions/concerns about the proposal, feel free to let us know.  

The commenting period for the role proposal ran through the week of July 7-14. Voting started on Wednesday, July 15 and will run until Wednesday, July 22nd.

At our July 14 meeting, we began planning a fall event for consolidated departments in COLA (for more information about consolidation, see here).  We also briefly discussed May Day 2027 plans.  The bulk of our conversation was about canvassing.

Canvassing

The union has been actively canvassing this summer, particularly in STEM departments.  Maybe you’ve seen some of our flyers!  We’ve canvassed in Integrative Biology, Neuroscience, Psychology, Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics, and it’s been great meeting graduate workers and signing them up for the union.  

This week we have been canvassing in the Chemistry department, and we’ll be having coffee hour this Friday from 1:30-2:30 in Welch 2.322, coffee and pastries provided.  We’ve heard a lot of concerns about working conditions, with no recourse or grievance processes in the event of mistreatment.  GRA funding is being cut, while there are not enough TA positions to go around.  This is certainly not unique to the chemistry department and reiterates the need for a labor union representing the interests of graduate workers at UT.

If you’d like us to canvass in your department, we’ll be there.  We would also love for you to canvass with us. Please reach out if there’s interest.

Orientations

We are also planning around graduate orientations this fall.  Our goal is to obtain a speaking slot at as many department orientations as possible -- to introduce ourselves, speak about our work for a fairer UT, and begin a dialog with graduate workers.  If you’re involved in organizing these orientations, please reach out.  We’ll also be canvassing at the university-wide graduate orientation.

And we will also be organizing a union interest meeting in early September -- please be on the lookout for that.

In Other News

• CapMetro union members voted in late June to authorize a strike in the event a new contract cannot be reached (99.5% of the union voted for authorization); negotiations are ongoing.  Keolis was awarded a $754 million contract in 2023 to run the CapMetro bus routes; this is despite a history of anti-union conduct.  More than 75% of CapMetro employees in Austin cannot afford the cost of living.  According to KUT: “the union says its grievances around training relate directly to the quality of transit service: late buses, missing trips, high turnover and vehicles breaking down along their routes.”  Sources: [1], [2], [3]