History of GAAC, FSE, and the Collective Bargaining Bill

Early History
Historians generally trace the origins of Fearless Student Employees (FSE) to an attempt to pass legislation to grant graduate assistants (GAs) in the University of Maryland System (USM) collective bargaining rights in 2000 (HB1361). Collective bargaining at public universities is governed by state law. In Maryland, labor law was previously governed by Executive Order 01.01.1996.13 but the status of government employees remained vague until Chapter 298 of 1999  established a State Labor Relations Board and granted collective bargaining rights to certain state employees, while prohibiting public university employees. HB1361 was an effort to explicitly extend collective bargaining rights to “include employees, including faculty and teaching staff, of the University System of Maryland (USM), Morgan State University, St. Mary’s College, and Baltimore City Community College.”

HB1361 failed and so, the following year, another push to gain collective bargaining rights for university employees was attempted (2001: HB 300 / SB 207). While this bill was passed into law (Chapter 341 of 2001), and public university employees gained the right to collective bargaining, amendments were added which specifically excluded “administrators, faculty, teaching assistants, contractual employees, and others.”    The resulting law (Article – State Personnel and Pensions, Section 3–101, 3–102, and 3–403(d), Annotated Code of Maryland) now specifically prohibited GAs from being classified as employees and prohibited their ability to collective bargaining.

A bill was introduced the following year (2002: HB 604) to reverse this decision and expand collective bargaining rights to all university employees, yet it failed to get out of the House Appropriations Committee. Following this defeat, the fight for GA collective bargaining rights stalled out for a number of years. The effort was revived briefly in 2008 (HB 538 / SB 617) but it was unsuccessful and shortlived.

In 2012 a renewed push (HB 972 / SB 859) seemed promising, though this too ended in defeat. However, as a concession the USM allowed GAs to form Graduate Assistant Advisory Committees (GAAC). The university administration was required to “meet and confer” with these committees twice a year, but they lacked any real negotiating or enforcement power and have often been derided as no more than “company unions.” Advocates of collective bargaining quickly captured the reigns of GAAC and turned it towards the goal of collective bargaining. Despite the intended limitations of the meet and confer process, the GAAC at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD) did provide some institutional legitimacy to GA advocacy efforts and would provide an organizational framework that would keep GA advocacy alive. (For more details see: [GAAC])

Modern History
The modern fight for collective bargaining rights for GAs at the University of Maryland really began around 2015, when GAs formed the organization United Academics of Maryland (UAM), which would be the direct precursor to FSE. During this period, UMD’s GAs were working with the trade union American Federation of Teachers (AFT), however, relations between the two were rocky, with GAs accusing AFT of neglecting their needs. Eventually the two parted ways. The separation from AFT and the formation of FSE roughly coincide, though it is unclear if this was the impetus for the organization’s birth.

In 2015, UAM leaders formed "The Coalition," which would be renamed Fearless Student Employees in 2016. Initially the group was organized as a coalition that would act as a clearinghouse for the various graduate student groups at UMD working to improve the conditions of GAs. The early affiliates primarily consisted of UAM, GAAC, the Graduate Student Government (GSG), but a number of other organization participated to some degree, including Student Labor Action Project (SLAP), Asian American Student Union (AASU), COMMGrads, English Grad Organizing Group, and Community Roots. The stated purpose of FSE was two-fold: “First, we work to secure legal employee status and collective bargaining rights for graduate student workers at the University of Maryland, College Park. Second, we work to build collective power for graduate student workers, both generally and on specific issues at the University of Maryland, College Park.” Though it retained some aspects of this coalition structure, over time FSE grew to be a more self-contained organization, with UAM folding into FSE.

The formation of FSE kicked off a flurry of organizing and agitation. FSE organized and participated in a number of campaigns, such as Save Grad Ed, a successful nationwide attempt to stop a federal bill which would count tuition remission as taxable income; the “Loh Must Go” protests, which sought the ousting of the University’s president Wallace Loh after a number of controversies, including the death of an undergraduate football player ; and campaigns to end UMD contracts with immigration and law enforcement agencies.

Efforts to pass legislation gaining collective bargaining rights were resumed in 2017 (HB 1250) and 2018 (HB 199 / SB 560). In 2019 FSE’s bill (HB 270 / SB 491) successfully passed the Maryland House, but stalled in the Senate Finance Committee, which would be a reoccurring problem. In 2020, FSE managed to secure the sponsorship of a majority of Senate Finance Committee members for its bill (HB 214 / SB 658), including the Committee chair Senator Dolores Kelley, however, during the hearing she announced that the bill would not proceed to due to state budget constraints. Backroom negotiations were in process, but the session was ended prematurely due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

2020 proved to be a difficult year for FSE. In addition to the COVID-19 Pandemic, which hampered organizational efforts, that year saw the departure of nearly all of the coalition’s core members. With the combined effects of these crises, the organization realistically faced collapse, yet by the beginning of 2021 FSE had rebounded. With a new cadre at its helm, FSE once again submitted legislation to legalize collective bargaining for GAs (SB 521). Though the bill stalled in the Senate Finance Committee yet again, FSE managed to secure the support of a majority of the Maryland Senate, clearing a huge hurdle and bringing the organization closest than its every been to achieving its goal of collective bargaining rights for GAs in the USM.

Resistance
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