Addressing 115 unionists gathered for the annual conference of the Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions (CGEU) held in Philadelphia this August, Hecker said that the way to resist attacks on higher education and to win the fight for progressive causes is to exert power. For unions, power can only come through old-fashioned, one-on-one organizing.

Hecker’s labor roots were planted 25 years ago when he was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin and joined the Teaching Assistants’ Association/AFT. Graduate employee unions are a good training ground for union organizing, since constant organizing is the only way they can stay strong. With the strength that comes from a well-organized, highly active union, Hecker suggested, comes the power to be effective on a broader scale—to speak out for justice and fairness in higher education and other aspects of life. Graduate employee unions must marshal the power of the organizing model to build their ranks, so they can both effectively represent member interests and contribute to the larger goal of rebuilding the labor movement.

The meeting was sponsored by three AFT unions—Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers AAUP-AFT and the Temple University Graduate Students’ Association. And of the 115 in attendence, 85 were from AFT-affiliated locals, says Michael Janson, of GET-UP. As is the tradition at AFT meetings, this conference featured a solidarity action to support hotel workers at the Philadelphia Hyatt Regency, who are represented by Unite-HERE.

At other sessions, the unionists shared techniques and strategies for building membership, negotiating strong contracts, participating in political action and working effectively with the media. They also passed a resolution pledging to support the Graduate Student Organizing Committee/UAW at New York University, which has been denied bargaining rights after an unfavorable National Labor Relations Board ruling two years ago.

Temple grad students will get year-round health coverage with premiums paid by the university and their choice of two plans, including one with comprehensive dental and vision benefits. The union had recently won a grievance establishing graduate employees’ right to summer health coverage.

Negotiators secured language that settles problems members had been having with workload review. In the past, the teaching assistants had to haggle within their department over workload issues; the contract makes the university responsible for dealing with disputes. “This takes the pressure off students to confront the chair or the person overseeing their work,” says TUGSA co-president Daniel Lehman.

The contract sets up a “fair share” system—which would allow TUGSA to receive payments from those covered by the contract even if they didn’t join the union—contingent upon unit membership of 70 percent. This is a challenge for a graduate student local that routinely experiences one-third turnover each year, but TUGSA is enthusiastic about its ability to meet the target. The fair share measure, and another measure granting leave for union officials, will improve the union’s effectiveness.

Another important goal for TUGSA is to secure better child care options for its member families. Temple’s child care center closed in 1995, and the union has begun discussions to reopen that center. This contract enables labor and management to jointly explore such options.

“Our union continues to be a militant, passionate advocate for workers’ rights and quality education at Temple University,” says April Logan, lead TUGSA negotiator.

One reads: “Welcome to the University of Illinois. 30 percent of classes are taught by grad assistants.”

Further on, you see, “40 percent of grad assistants can’t afford child healthcare.”

The Graduate Employees Organization/AFT, the union that represents 2,800 graduate employees and teaching assistants at Illinois’s flagship institution, is in the midst of negotiating its second contract. The first one expired Aug. 15. To help fire the negotiations, the union bought up 10 billboards to display its message during the week before classes started and during the first week of classes. At the top of the list of member concerns is healthcare costs, especially for those graduate employees with families. “Many of us cannot meet basic living expenses because of costly medical bills,” says Christopher Simeone, chief negotiator for GEO.

GEO says that the health insurance benefit at Illinois compares poorly with those offered graduate employees at comparable Midwest institutions. Michigan State and the University of Michigan, for example, pay up to 95 percent of premium costs for single coverage holders. Michigan State also contributes up to 70 percent of the premium cost for family care. In contrast, the U of I contributes no money toward family healthcare, and meets only 25 percent of premium costs for single coverage holders.

Another sore point for GEO families is the cost of daycare. “At 200 bucks a week for university-provided daycare, there’s no way to make ends meet!” writes grad employee Laura Galicia on the GEO Web site. As classes got under way this semester, the university announced that GEO salaries would be frozen at last year’s levels until a finalized contract is in place. The union, which has been at the table with management since April 25, will keep applying pressure, through billboards and community support-building activities, until that day comes.

That’s why the AFT joined with 27 other public employee groups this summer in urging Congress to reject schemes to apply private sector rules to public pensions. The warning is timely because on Aug. 17, President Bush signed a new law ratcheting up pension requirements for companies­—rules that likely will pressure more private sector employers to jettison high-quality, traditional pensions for their workers.

Any attempt to graft the new rules onto public pension plans would be wildly inappropriate and could spell disaster for public employees and their rights to a decent retirement, the coalition warns.

Pressure already is building.

Many critics of strong pensions have stepped up efforts to bury the distinction between public and private plans now that the Pension Reform Act of 2006 is law. As the new private pension law was nearing completion, ranking members of the Senate Finance Committee asked investigators to conduct a sweeping study of public pensions. “Many of the public sector plans are even more poorly funded than their private sector equivalents,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the Government Accountability Office, which also asked GAO to fold in a financial assessment of health plans for public sector retirees as well.

The letter prompted the AFT and other public employee groups to step in quickly to correct the record. Public and private pensions are not equivalent: There “are fundamental differences between governments and business that result in critical distinctions between plans in each sector and the way in which they are accounted for and measured,” the coalition reminded Congress and the GAO in an Aug. 2 letter to lawmakers.

Credit quality is one important distinction. It is generally accepted that riskier plans should provide more upfront funding to keep them healthy and solvent. “Public plans are backed by the full faith and credit of state and local governments, [and accrued benefits] typically are protected by state constitutions, statutes or case law,” the coalition pointed out. This provides “far greater protections” for employees and also means that public pensions, almost by definition, offer higher credit quality than plans backed by private companies and federal insurance.

Moreover, public pension plans are in good financial condition. As a group, 86 percent of public pension liabilities are funded—a level that history and current standards deem healthy. And the levels are rising, the coalition stressed.

In addition, calls to fold a health plan assessment into the upcoming federal study will create problems where none exist. “Retiree health benefits are handled separately and independently and often are not administered or funded as part of a government retirement system,” the coalition reminded lawmakers.

These inconvenient truths are frequently ignored by many pension “reformers.” They would welcome efforts to saddle public pension plans with costly new rules adopted for the private sector—such as a mandate for 100 percent funding of private plans within seven years. Of course, such a move would be contrary to sound practice and devastating to many traditional pension plans.

But isn’t that the point?

Pressure to graft private sector rules onto public plans comes largely from groups seeking to destroy pensions, rather than to save them. They welcome talk of a “pension crisis,” manufactured or otherwise, since it greases their long-term goals of replacing traditional pensions with 401(k)-type plans. These are “defined-contribution” plans where employees are forced to go it alone—assuming all the risk of investing for retirement.

Or employers may dump traditional pensions in favor of “cash-balance plans,” a hybrid approach that requires employers to make annual contributions, plus a guaranteed rate of return, to a hypothetical individual account for employees. New cash-balance plans are legitimized in the new federal law covering private pensions—legally inoculated from the kind of age-discrimination lawsuits that have plagued these plans in the past. Usually, it’s mid- and late-career employees who go to court, charging that companies shortchanged their years of service when they converted from traditional plans.

But even younger employees need to ask hard questions about cash-balance plans. They typically fail to offer disability and survivors’ benefits. And cash-balance plans’ guaranteed rates of return are often below what traditional pension plans have generated in years past. Any “surplus returns” under this hybrid go right into employers’ pockets.

The unification brings 13 new community college locals under the NYSUT banner, doubling the size of NYSUT’s community college council.

The new, united organization will maintain New York State United Teachers as its name and will be headquartered in Latham, N.Y.

New York joins Florida, Minnesota and Montana, which also have merged AFT-NEA state federations.

The PEF members who died were among some 300 PEF members who worked for New York state’s Department of Tax and Finance, the Department of Transportation and the National Development and Research Institute at the complex. “The terrible events of Sept. 11 brought out the best in our members in their courage and their service to the people of New York,” said PEF president and AFT vice president Kenneth Brynien.

“Our members responded to the attack with selflessness, courage and valor. On that day, many of our members continued working in whatever capacity they could, helping to evacuate the towers, working in rescue operations and ensuring the vital services our members provide to the citizens of New York were not interrupted.”

PEF cultivated the garden and erected a seven-foot granite monument in 2002 as a tribute to members who have been killed in the line of duty since PEF became a union in 1978.

In New York City, United Federation of Teachers president and AFT vice president Randi Weingarten was among the invited guests for a Sept. 10 ceremony at ground zero.

In Washington, D.C., colleagues and students remembered three D.C. public school teachers who were among the passengers killed when American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon. The three teachers, all members of the Washington Teachers Union, were accompanying three schoolchildren as they headed to California on an educational trip.

On Sept. 10, students, parents and staff from the schools joined hundreds of family members of victims of the Pentagon attack in a memorial walk from the National Mall to the crash site at the Pentagon.

At Ketcham Elementary School in southeast Washington, D.C., teacher James Debeuneure and student Rodney Dickens, both of whom perished on the flight that crashed into the Pentagon, were remembered during an assembly on the school system-wide annual Day of Remembrance. “It’s critical that we never forget what happened to these members of our school’s family and that we both remember them and work toward teaching children to settle ther disagreements peacefully,” says Ketcham principal Joyce Grimes.

The elementary school has established the Debeuneure-Dickens Resource Center to honor the teacher and student.

The AFL-CIO also paid tribute to more than 600 union members who died in the Sept. 11 attacks, including 300 firefighters and other emergency personnel.