Beginning in the 1970s, graduate, teaching, and research assistants in the various schools of the State University of New York (SUNY) decided it would be beneficial to form a union for graduate student employees. The movement began at SUNY Buffalo in 1975 and showed great promise based on the number of signatures gathered from graduate assistants up until 1977. The movement suffered a temporary setback over issues regarding New York State's Taylor Law, lost momentum, and did not recover until the early 1980s. Over the course of another decade, the Graduate Student Employees Union (GSEU) debated with the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) about whether graduate, teaching, and research assistants deserved official union representation since PERB viewed their status primarily as students, not state employees. As the dispute continued throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, GSEU members voted to join the Communications Workers of America to increase their bargaining power. In addition, the largest of the SUNY campuses -- the four "university centers" of Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, and Stony Brook -- became the hubs of activity for union organizers as statewide action became necessary in the journey to official union status. In 1991, PERB recognized the GSEU as a full-fledged union, but only for teaching and graduate assistants. Research assistants were denied union membership because they are employees of the Research Foundation. The GSEU has a statewide executive committee that oversees union activity around New York. The officers take charge of procedures like policy planning and collective bargaining, but are helped by officers of the steering committees at the SUNY schools, particularly the four university centers. In the winter of 2001, the members of GSEU merged with CWA Local 1112 (Telephone Traffic Union Upstate Workers) and CWA Local 1104 (Telecommunications) in order to gain more bargaining power.
From the description of Communications Workers of America, Education Division, Local 1104 Records, 1969-2001. (University at Albany). WorldCat record id: 690590154
