Patrick Crowley

When Patrick Crowley was 20 years old, he took a job at a Coca-Cola factory in Needham.It was a defining moment in his life.

During his first night on the production line, the foreman told Crowley he'd have to work an extra four hours at the end of his shift.When Crowley asked what would happen if he didn't stay, he was told he'd be fired.He stayed the extra time that night, and, in fact, kept the job for six months, working 12 hours a day, six days a week.When he left Coca-Cola to go to college, he started learning about the history of the labor movement, about the country's first unions, and about the public perception that unions were self-interested, elitist and stubborn.

Today, in his work with the UMass Graduate Employees Organization, the union that represents UMass graduate student workers, Crowley is part of a movement to redirect organized labor, to make unions more responsive to the challenges all workers face, and to improve the public understanding of what unions do.This means that when he sits down to negotiate the GEO's contract with the UMass administration -- as he has nearly every week for the past year -- he brings concerns to the table that affect his entire membership.That is, the GEO negotiating team tries to represent both women and men, as well as traditionally under represented groups, such as Latinos, blacks and single mothers.

"In broad terms, when it comes to workers, it really is 'us' and 'them,'" Crowley said."And by pushing for things like child care and affirmative action, which usually aren't in union contracts, we're making the 'us' a little bigger. ...To include black people, to include gays and lesbians, is taking the labor movement to the next step."

So when UMass students took over the school's Goodell Building two weeks ago, Crowley, a candidate for an M.S. in labor studies, understood the connections those students made between issues of race and class.As president of the GEO, he saw a natural link between the demands being made in Goodell and those he and others at the GEO are making.

Now in its 13th month of contract negotiations, the GEO is pressing the administration for more accessible and flexible child care, increased ethnic and racial diversity among faculty and students, better pay and job security.

If the GEO were merely pushing for basic, bread-and-butter demands -- if it were focused entirely on wages, for example -- a year might be a long time in which to negotiate a contract.And some, particularly critics of the administration, do charge that the talks have gone on for too long.Letters in The Daily Collegian, UMass' student newspaper, have accused administrators of stalling.

But Crowley won't go that far."They are trying to offer us what they can," he said.But, he added, "they are [also] trying to increase the amount of power they have."

And, Crowley said, the length of the negotiations has not solely been determined by the administration.To include the most diverse collection of ideas and voices from the union, the work of a GEO organizer is necessarily slow."We're paying a lot more attention to the fundamentals of what it means to be a union," he said.And that means, "talking to people, saying, 'What are the problems.What can we do together?'"

Although communicating with membership is part of any effective organization, Crowley said the GEO's approach is significant because the history of American labor provides few models for union organizing in which contract decisions are made without excluding the majority of the membership."We want [the contract] to be what the membership wants.We don't want it to be only an elite decision," he said.

In working to include more people, the GEO is part of a larger national struggle to make workplaces, and the unions that organize them, more just.In the Pioneer Valley, organizations are pushing for a living wage and for greater community involvement in the labor movement.

...
As it forgets new ground, Crowley said, the GEO has encountered resistance, most visibly from the UMass administration."The university doesn't understand why we would be pushing for [affirmative action and child care]."But, he said, "It's actually natural for us to be fighting for this.We just haven't done a lot of it for 50 years."

Since the Goodell takeover publicized many of their concerns, GEO activists are looking forward to increased campus participation in their work.And they add the takeover to the list of actions of the past few months -- including a march protesting fee increases, and another in support of child care and affirmative action -- which, Crowley said, help their negotiations inch toward a conclusion.

"Every time we do that, the University responds to us at the bargaining table," he said."First, they're very angry.Then, they listen to us a little more."