Fifty UVa graduate students have formed a union, and will align with the national Communication Workers of America. UVa has 3,300 graduate students, many of whom work as graduate instructors and teaching assistants. Says a student union member, graduate students “teach the classes, grade the exams, grade the papers [and] advise the students.” Eric Swensen has the story in today’s Progress.
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
four six and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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Sometimes it is just “Posted by Waldo” and sometimes it is “Posted by Waldo“. Any reason?
That’s weird — you mean sometimes it’s bold and sometimes it’s not?
I’ve discovered that if I login as “waldo” (instead of “Waldo”), stories appear credited to the lowercase version.
God, this software sucks. I’ll be so thankful when I get all of my ducks in a row to upgrade to PostNuke. Now that I took my last exam this evening (woo-hoo), that means that I get my nights back. Upgrading cvillenews.com’s software is right up there on my priority list.
Story is here.
From the article:
So it isn’t that unions are illegal in VA (contra Snook’s comments about the CPOA) or even that they are totally without power.
Any legal eagles here want to clarify the picture?
I’m not a legal eagle–wish I were.
I think an equally interesting question is this: why are the graduate students moving ahead with unionization when there are only 50 of them so far who want to unionize? If indeed the rest of the grad employee population is not interested, it seems energy would be better spent trying to build support for a union. I know of other universities where the pro-union grads took several years to slowly and carefully build support for a union, so that when they did unionize, they had a majority of grad employees signing up.
I think that declaring a union now just looks silly.