GLO Constitution Rewrite Summary + FAQ

Summary of Proposed Changes

Our upcoming contract negotiations this Spring with Brown admin will determine grad workers’ wages, healthcare and rights over our working conditions. To prepare for organizing and rank-and-file democracy in this important campaign, and with the benefit of the outgoing e-board’s two years’ experience running our union in practice, GLO’s new e-board is proposing revisions to our union’s constitution. This is a summary of the most significant changes. You can see the detailed side-by-side comparison of our original constitution and the proposed rewrite here. We hope you’ll be able to join us at the General Members’ Meeting July 11th on Zoom at 6pm. Look for a digital ballot in your inbox on July 18th!

Merging the Stewards’ Assembly and Organizing Committee

Stewards are the backbone of any union, representing rank-and-file members to elected officers, communicating to rank-and-file members, and most importantly organizing members to take action at work. GLO’s organizing committee has been the heart of organizing members to win our first contract and raise campaigns. Merging the Stewards’ Assembly and Organizing Committee will streamline our organizing and representation of members through stewards, ensuring that stewards are active organizers and are engaged in important decisions about our campaigns.

Updating the ratio of stewards to members

In the past, GLO’s stewards structure has been oriented toward a goal of one steward for every 40 GLO members. In line with peer grad unions’ constitutions and towards better representation, we’re updating that ratio to one steward for every 25 members. We’ve also raised the nomination support requirement for stewards from 5 to 10 members, to better ensure that every steward is an organizer representative of grads at their worksite.

Revising our intra-member accountability process

Unfortunately, harassment and discriminatory behavior can and does happen between members of labor unions and social justice organizations. As a proactive step, we’re revising GLO’s process for addressing cases of abuse between members. This process is oriented towards transformative justice, and being prepared to find the best path forward for members’ safety and rights if and when cases arise. We have also mandated that our Coordinator for Social Justice and Accountability receive formal training in Transformative Justice. 

Improving our process for strike votes and contract ratification

It’s always up to workers, and no one else, to decide together whether to initiate a strike. Strikes are our most powerful tool if everyone is united in refusing to work, and likewise very difficult as striking workers can’t be paid for lost work time that isn’t made up later. In the event that members vote to go out on strike in a contract campaign, our original constitution’s language on contract ratification would have forced GLO members to wait four weeks before voting on a tentative agreement for a new contract. That would either be four more weeks without pay, which would be impossible to make up at the end of a semester, or else everyone would have to go back to work without having yet ratified a contract. 

While the spirit of the original language valued member democracy in theory, in practice it would have the opposite result, and no other union has such language.

F.A.Q.

What prompted this revision of our constitution?

In GLO’s first two years, our first e-board learned from their experiences running our union and carrying out wage campaigns. With the benefit of that experience, as well as looking ahead to our upcoming campaign to re-negotiate our contract with Brown, we wanted to revise the constitution in line with those experiences to improve our organizing, rank-and-file democracy and be as strong as possible going into this important contract campaign.

What other unions’ constitutions did the research committee look at?

The research committee reviewed the constitutions of our peer grad unions HGSU-UAW at Harvard, GAGE at Georgetown, and SWC-UAW at Columbia, as well as public university grad unions GEO at the University of Michigan and GEO at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

How was the constitution research committee assembled?

Members of GLO’s e-board elected in May volunteered to take on the work of researching other unions’ constitutions and writing our draft revisions.

How will the vote be conducted?

At our July 11th GMM, the research committee will present its proposed changes to members for review and discussion. Following this meeting, there will be another week for members’ input before a finalized version of the proposed changes will go up for an online vote, from July 18th through August 1st. Look for a digital ballot in your inbox and be sure to reach out to elections@glounion.org if you don’t receive one!