GTAC at Kansaa: Working it right in a Right-to-Work State

Abstract

The Graduate Teaching Assistants Coalition began as a student organization at the University of Kansas (KU) in 1991. After four years of legal battles with the university, we affiliated with AFT. Because the university stalled, it took two more years to ratify the first contract. That contract codified the tuition waiver and granted GTAs at KU the first-ever employer contribution to health insurance premiums. In those first six years, many people contributed mightily just to create the union and then get the first contract done. Because I was not at KU during all of that time, I do not know everyone who worked on these things but I do want to name (with my apologies for misspellings) the ones that I do know—to acknowledge and thank them for the work they did that has improved the teaching conditions for GTAs at KU: Richard Buck, Karen Hellikson, Mark Horowitz, Stephen Mathis, Dan Murtaugh, David Reidy, Laura Senio, and Helen Sheumaker.