TRACBRA: Form letter to send to Representatives or Senators requesting support of TRACBRA
From CGEU
SAMPLE LETTER TO A CONGRESSPERSON
Dear [Senator or Representative],
As your constituent, I write to urge you to co-sponsor and to support the “Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act of 2009” (H.R. 1461 and S. 813). This legislation would amend the National Labor Relations Act to restore collective bargaining rights to teaching and research assistants at private universities and colleges. It would reverse the unjust decision by the Bush appointees to the National Labor Relations Board (in Brown University) that stripped thousands of teaching and research assistants across the country of their right to negotiate equitable pay, health benefits and workload protections. The Brown University decision has been condemned by thousands of scholars and human rights advocates, including the International Labor Organization, an agency of the United Nations.
In introducing the legislation in the Senate, Senator Ted Kennedy said, “Teaching and research assistants are in the classrooms every day, educating students in colleges and universities across the country. This bill restores the bargaining rights unfairly denied by the NLRB to these hard-working graduate students.” The bill has the strong support of the major unions active in higher education, including the UAW, the American Federation of Teachers, CWA, UNITE-HERE, the American Association of University Professors and the AFL-CIO.
TA’s and RA’s at public universities have enjoyed collective bargaining rights for decades. Collective bargaining has enhanced the quality of higher education at some of our country’s best public universities, including the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, the University of Wisconsin, Madison and the University of California, Berkeley. The Bush NLRB decision deprives tens of thousands of workers, who perform the same valuable services at private universities as their counterparts do at public universities, of the rights and securities offered by union membership.
Your co-sponsorship will help restore the protections and rights of the National Labor Relations Act to teaching and research assistants at private institutions, so they are able to bargain to secure health benefits, workplace protections and living wages. This, in turn, will improve the learning conditions of the many students whose education depends on teaching and research assistants. I urge you in the strongest possible terms to co-sponsor and to support the Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act. I look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
