Dear Grad Workers,
It’s been a minute since our last bargaining update, so let’s catch you up.
NMSU did not respond to our intent to bargain until five days after the deadline. When they did finally respond, their first suggested meeting time was April 22nd, well over a month past our delivery of intent. This isn’t surprising to us. One of NMSU’s favorite bargaining tactics is to drag out the process, waste your time and ours, and pay union-busting lawyers thousands upon thousands of dollars to tell us we don’t deserve to be paid enough to live.
Speaking of union busting lawyers, NMSU retained Dina Holcomb to bargain against us. For those lucky enough to not know that name, Dina is New Mexico’s biggest union-busting lawyer. Just this past weekend our union President mentioned her name at a summit of higher ed unions in Albuquerque to a room full of boos. NMSU pays Dina over $2,000 per day to bargain against us. Many grad workers make barely over that per month. If that doesn’t tell you what NMSU values, I don’t know what will.
On top of dragging out our first meeting and shelling out top dollar for NM’s biggest union-busting lawyer, NMSU has been toeing the legal line in withholding information we have a right to during bargaining. With our intent to bargain, we delivered a request for information necessary for us to bargain in good faith. The Public Employees Bargaining Act requires NMSU to deliver this information in a “timely manner”. I’m not sure about you, but four days prior to our first bargaining session after already delaying by over a month does not sound particularly timely to me.
NMSU plays these games because they know the legal process to stop them is slow and arduous. They know we don’t have the organizing power to put the necessary pressure on them to follow the law. We need to show them how hard we’re willing to fight for grads to be paid what they deserve.
For now, what this looks like is talking to your coworkers about bargaining. Share your frustration with them about NMSU being willing to pay a lawyer $2,000 a day and not being willing to do something as simple as sparing our international workers $1,200 a year for health insurance. Spread the bargaining support petition, and commit to taking action to support our fight for higher wages.
We know just as well as you do what a difficult time in the semester it is. NMSU knows this too, and chose to delay for exactly that reason. If you can at all, clear your calendar for afternoon-evening May 7th. Depending on how this first session goes, we may call on you to take action in support of bargaining.
If the 7th doesn’t work for you, get in contact with us! We’ll let you know how else you can help.
In Solidarity,
Your Bargaining Committee