740 Research Assistants Pick CWA at SUNY Stony Brook

Research assistants at the State University of New York Research Foundation at Stony Brook, N.Y., held firm against a strong anti-union effort to gain representation with CWA Local 1104 on Dec. 5, reported District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton. The vote in the NLRB-sponsored election was 214-135 with 35 challenged ballots. Nearly 740 RAs are employed at SUNY's Stony Brook University campus.

Considered one of the largest union election wins of the year, the vote came on the heels of last week's organizing victory for 450 Reno, Nev., hospital workers, who chose CWA by a 4-to-1 margin.

Research Assistants at Stony Brook University/SUNY celebrate after gaining CWA representation in the largest organizing victory on Long Island in years. The 740 workers, all graduate students, will be represented by CWA Local 1104.

The SUNY workers, all doctoral students, are seeking better pay and benefits and fairer treatment from a university administration that has continually claimed that it could not afford to pay them a more livable wage. The RAs are particularly aggrieved over a $500 transportation and technology fee that the institution charges them each semester – a fee that has been waived for graduate and teaching assistants at Stony Brook, who were already represented by Local 1104.  

"It doesn't sound like a big deal, but for a lot of RAs making $20,000 a year, $1,000 is a lot," RA Matt Engel, a member of the organizing committee, told Newsday following the victory. "Basically, there has never been a negotiated raise for RAs ever," he said.

Local 1104 represents more than 4,000 graduate and teaching assistants at Stony Brook and in the SUNY system.

Though affiliated with the State University of New York, the privately-managed Research Foundation resorted to captive audience meetings, one-on-ones, and other tactics to squash the RAs' campaign.  Management also sought to delay or even block the election by challenging earlier NLRB decisions that allow research assistants the right to organize.

The RAs prevailed thanks to a committed 50-person organizing committee, according to District 1 Organizing Coordinator Tim Dubnau, who credited "a tremendous GOTV operation by activists on the organizing committee, by CWA locals and allied groups."

Assisting the RAs' from Local 1104 were Organizing Director Jim McAsey, rank-and-file project organizers Li Ming, Kevin Young, Xu Xiao and Kira Schuman, Local Chief Steward and Political Organizer Anthony Eramo, who helped build community support for the RAs, and over a dozen stewards from Verizon.

Help in the campaign also came from Local 1037 Organizing Director Anne Luck, Local 1180 Organizer Erin Mahoney, TNG-CWA Local 31003 Organizer Alanna Stone, project organizer Ari Gold from District 7, District 1 CWA Rep Pete Sikora, and volunteers from the Long Island Progressive Coalition and Working Families Party.