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.. _union_reps:
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Union Representatives
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The United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2865 is the union representing over 12,000 Academic Student Employees - Tutors, Readers, and Teaching Assistants - at the nine teaching campuses of the University of California. As for all employees, wages, benefits, workload, grievance procedures, and fair hiring processes are important issues of concern for graduate and undergraduate students working at the UC. Through the Union, we have the right to bargain with the UC over our working conditions and to have a say in the policies that affect us.

The Berkeley unit of AGSE represents the larger number of students in the UC system and it is part of the UAW Local 2865. The AGSE/UAW Berkeley meets once a month for ~2 hours and usually the topics are contract enforcement and outreach updates. Sometimes the job is more exciting like awakening consciences of regular citizens about an specific proposition (i.e. trying to reduce the budget for education; attacks on human rights like sweatshops or criminalization of 5 year old kids or some other nonsense propositions supported by some pathological politicians… ).

The meetings are held in the UAW 2865 Berkeley office at 2372 Ellsworth Street. Time requirements can be as low as a few hours per month. Your main duties will be to attend the meetings and keep the other grad students appraised of goings on. The annual meeting to discuss the strategies to reinforce the contract to pursue quality education is very instructive and fun. Someday all humans will have universal and free quality education.