[While I’m busy scrubbing poop from diapers and other articles of clothing, several friends have been kind enough to provide content for this site, through a program we’re calling Blogbaby. Today’s contribution comes from my friend and former bandmate Pete Larson.]

Mark has been on to me for several weeks to write something for his blog. So far, I’ve started composing no fewer than five posts. One day I’ll finish the other four. I can post any nonsensical thought on my own blog, but publishing nonsense on someone else’s blog (particularly Mr. Maynard’s) is another matter… So, Mark will just have to wait for my analysis of his expanding waistline, and my fantastic report linking Japanese porn to the Republican Party’s current assault on reproductive rights, for just a little while longer. Here, in the meantime, are my thoughts on the unionization of Graduate Student Research Assistants (GSRAs) at University of Michigan.

Currently, the union which represents Graduate Student Instructors (GSIs) at the UM, GEO, is actively attempting to bring Graduate Student Research Assistants (GSRAs) into the union. GEO can claim as a success, the excellent funding package that graduate student employees currently receive, which includes a living wage, and the same health insurance package that all UM employees receive. The health insurance benefits alone complete a package that far exceeds that offered by other comparable institutions. I personally receive this package. No other school I applied to (back when I was applying) offered anything close.

When the University has, in the past, sought to reduce benefits, GEO has lobbied successfully to maintain them. GSRAs are able to appeal to GEO for advocacy, and currently enjoy the same minimum benefits as Graduate Student Instructors, but do not have any official union representation. It is worth noting, that though the University grants GSRAs the same benefits as GSIs, the University is not under any obligation to do so.

For GSRAs to enter the union, the entire body of GSRAs must vote to do so, which seems like a simple process. Allowing a vote, however, depends on the decisions of a state body, the Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC), along with the final decision of a state judge. This is where things get hairy. GSIs are considered employees of the University and thus state employees under a decision from the early 1980’s which allowed them to unionize as any body of state employees can.

GSRAs at that time were not considered state employees, though, as they were thought to prioritize work on their own research over that which the University was pursuing. At the time, there were very few GSRAs and many GSIs. The situation has changed dramatically since that time. The University of Michigan is now a research behemoth producing work that largely depends on the work of its expanding army of graduate students. There are now more than 2000 GSRAs on campus.

What would seem to be a simple issue to be resolved in a summer, has turned into a long and drawn out legal battle. The right wing think tank, the Mackinac Center, has proactively sought to block the vote to include GSRAs into the union. I will fully admit that I loathe the Mackinac Center and have written about them here and here. The Mackinac Center has enlisted several GSRAs who oppose the movement to speak (there is opposition within the GSRA community) and actively comment to local radio and newspapers that the unionization of GSRAs will lead to the collapse of the first world economy, and, more importantly, the local economy of the University of Michigan.

Our own right wing (and very anti-union) attorney general Bill Schuette has also come out to oppose the movement (when not moving to deal with the imagined rise of Sharia law in Michigan), following the lead of conservative anti-union politicians like Scott Walker, the Governor of Wisconsin.

MERC has ruled the movements of both the Mackinac Center and the Attorney General as irrelevant and inadmissible in discussions of whether GSRAs should unionize or not. MERC recently moved to let the issue move to the courts, and let a judge decide whether the issue can be put to a vote or not.

I’m not advocating one way or the other in this post. I’ve got my opinion on unionization, and you surly have your own. What I think is important to note, however, is that the prospect of GSRA unionization has elicited such an intense reaction from conservative political figures and extreme right wing groups such as the Mackinac Center. That says to me that there’s something important at stake here. So, while there are those who would tell you that this subject is not of relevance to the State of Michigan, or, for that matter, to those outside the snobbish ivory towers of the University of Michigan, I’d suggest this should matter to everyone. There are wider implications here, and they, at least to me, point toward the systematic destruction of any type of union, be they for plumbers, farm workers or privileged UMich graduate students (assuming that one buys into that image).

For a much different perspective on the pending unionization of GSRAs at the University, I’d suggest checking out this letter to AnnArbor.com from a U-M professor.