THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 2014
PAGE 3
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CAMPUS
Grad students discuss union membership
CODY KUIPER
news@kansan.com
Spurred by the possibility of a University policy that could reduce their work hours, graduate students held a meeting on Wednesday to discuss reviving membership in a union already in place at the University.
The meeting of about 20 students from various departments focused on recruiting members to join the Graduate Teaching Assistants Coalition, a union representing graduate student employees that has been under contract with the University since 1997. The union was active until the mid-2000s when membership eventually dissolved, leaving the organization with no members but still technically representing graduate student employees.
"If you're a teaching assistant, you sign a form that says, 'The union agrees to this,' so that sort of gives you
the idea that there is a union, but there's nobody there," said Laurie Petty, a Ph.D. student in sociology who helped organize the meeting. "It was essentially defunct, but we're still bound by the contract from when the union was active."
"We need to recruit membership and reconstitute ourselves essentially as GTAC, and we can move forward from there to address concerns and changes that are affecting us now as opposed to ten years ago," Petty said. "We're just trying to give students a voice in things that affect them."
Petty said the main goal of the meeting was to begin rebuilding membership and leadership for the union on campus and making sure the representation for workers is up-to-date again.
An email from the University of Kansas Policy Library leaked last month, detailing a policy that could cut the maximum hours graduate students are allowed to work
for the University from 30 hours per week to 20 in order to comply with the Affordable Care Act. Since then, hundreds of graduate students signed a petition asking the University to not cut their hours, prompting a reply from the University promising forums and discussion on the issue going forward.
If a policy were to be implemented cutting graduate student employee hours, in order to file a grievance, the union would need to find the University in violation of an article in the contract, but no article currently pertains to the hours worked by graduate students.
Rachel Craft, an organizer of the meeting and a Ph.D. student in Sociology, said the idea for reviving the union had been around for a while, but the leaking of the policy idea served as a catalyst for reorganizing the union.
"I think there's been some discussion among graduate
students for a while," Craft said. "We did notice our GTA contracts started becoming more stagnate, because my first couple years as a GTA we experienced some mediocre increases in our wages, but I've noticed that's stagnated in the past few years, so its small issues like that and some of the issues that we face in our day-to-day lives that have started those discussions, but I think now is an important time to formally get involved and make things happen."
Craft and fellow sociology Ph.D. student Adrianne Showalter Matlock began sending emails in the days after learning of the policy proposal, contacting graduate students in various departments to set up a meeting discussing the union. Showalter Matlock said that even though the potential cut in hours helped kick-start the discussion, one of the main reasons for the meeting was to begin to create a unified voice for graduate students.
"This meeting is just for graduate students to come and get information about proposed policy changes, and to discuss ways we can work as a graduate student body to represent ourselves when important policies are going to be put in place or considered that affect us too." Showalter Matlock said.
At the meeting, students also discussed rewriting the bylaws of the union to bring them up to date, and they hope to have enough structure in place to table and recruit more members at the graduate student orientation in the fall.
The students also began planning for a "Union 101" informational meeting with representatives from the GTAC, tentatively set for April 30. More information on future events and meetings can be found on the KU Graduate Student Facebook page.
Edited by Katie Gilbaugh
Neb. governor signs water sustainability bill
POLICY
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LINCOLN, Neb. — Gov.
Dave Heineman signed a bill
Wednesday designed to help
Nebraska prepare for floods,
water shortages and water
quality problems.
Budget bills approved this year are expected to generate $32 million to help pay for projects related to water management and quality, flood control, and compliance with interstate compacts by mid- 2015. After that, the measure will provide about $11 million annually.
The bill by Sen. Tom Carlson, of Holdrege, comes in the midst of recent drought years and legal fights with Kansas over access to the Republican River, which runs through southern Nebraska.
"This is a difficult and challenging issue, and this legislation is aimed at planning for better future water use in our state," Heineman said. "Preserving and managing our water resources is important to Nebraskans, especially those who work in our No. 1
industry - agriculture."
The law will also expand the Natural Resources Commission, from 16 members to 27, to ensure that more major water users are represented. The new commission would include irrigators, cities, public power districts and wildlife conservation groups.
"I believe that (the measure) will be remembered as a bill that helped make water sustainability a possibility for generations to come."
TOM CARLSON
Nebraska senator
Carlson, a Republican candidate for governor, said the commission was expanded to include people from different backgrounds and different interests in the state's water supply.
sustainability a possibility for generations to come," he said.
"I believe that (the measure) will be remembered as a bill that helped make water
Sen. Mark Christensen of Imperial said the law will provide water projects with a steady source of state money, matched by local government dollars. Christensen said it also will force ground water and surface water users to work together, despite their past conflicts over the limited water supply.
"For too many years now, we've been on opposite sides of the fence, fighting rather than working together," he said.
Carlson and Christensen represent large areas of southern Nebraska, including parts of the Republican River basin. Water usage in the basin is driven heavily by the Republican River compact, an agreement between Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado.The 1943 compact requires Nebraska to send some of its water downstream to Kansas, but the two states have battled over the river for years in a series of lawsuits.
In this Jan. 15, 2014 file photo, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman delivers a speech in Lincoln, Neb. On Wednesday, Gov. Heineman said he was pleased with the tax-cut bills approved by lawmakers.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Monday is the absolute last day to drop a class. And Wednesday is the deadline for graduation applications.
STATE 'Do Jewish' to protest WBC in Leawood
Some University students will gather for a peaceful counter-protest on Friday in front of Westboro Baptist Church picketers at the funeral for two of the men killed at the Jewish Community Center Sunday.
After WBC announced it would picket the funeral in Leawood, senior Alex Brown and other students created a Facebook event page, "The 'Do Jewish' Movement." Between its creation on Sunday and Wednesday afternoon, the event had 215 participants.
Brown said he created the page because he and his friends couldn't sleep on Saturday night, and they wanted to do something. He said they wanted to get the page up before Passover started on Monday so Jewish families could keep it in their prayers during this week of prayer.
Brown said the Facebook group reminds people that not only leiwish people are being targeted and hurt.
"Selfish people who act on their hatred affect more than the actual group targeted," Brown said.
Brown said support for the counter-protest is welcome from all denominations.
Kayla Soper
KU$ \textcircled{1} $nfo
BOYS & GIRLS CLUB HIRING FAIR
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