I’m Gabe Sekeres, a second-year Ph.D. graduate worker in the Economics department, and the current Financial Secretary of CGSU-UE. I began organizing in my first semester at Cornell, and became particularly active during strike escalation. Through mainly conversations with my coworkers – the core of union organizing – I built a unified strike threat from my department, and personally convinced dozens of graduate workers to sign strike pledges. After we ratified our contract, I led the fellows inclusion and ratification bonus working groups that organized to push Cornell to extend all of the economic benefits, including the $1,300 ratification bonus, to over 700 fellows on campus. Since being elected Financial Secretary in July, I’ve begun dues collection, instituted voluntary fellow dues, and overhauled our data infrastructure. The latter is, by far, the most important. Cornell did not deduct dues from 502 people on August 31, and with our new infrastructure we were able to file a grievance within an hour listing the exact mistakes they had made. With the work I’ve started with Max Fan, Stephan Wagner, Andrea Cicirello, and Rebecca Margolit-Chan, this process will be automatic in the future, ensuring that they do not try to steal our dues again.

I’m running for Vice President of Membership on the Build / Activate / Mobilize slate because I am fundamentally an organizer. Our contract is industry-leading, and we have a robust steward network that has been actively and aggressively enforcing it. Regardless of that, our main wins have come by organizing members. It’s how we won MS graduate workers in the ILR school their jobs back, it’s how we’re fighting for graduate workers that Cornell is firing through academic pretexts, and it’s how we join in solidarity with other workers and organizers at Cornell to fight the administration’s austerity measures and “involuntary headcount reductions”.

I attended the 79th UE national convention in August, and had the opportunity to meet with and learn from leaders and rank-and-file UE members from across the country. Even more than the concrete organizing advice that I received – itself invaluable – the most important thing I learned was how UE members work and organize by the principles that guide the entire union. The three principles that spoke most to me were rank-and-file control, uniting all workers, and aggressive struggle. I look forward to instituting them concretely in CGSU-UE, as your Vice President of Membership.

Specifically, I plan on instituting regular organizing meetings around our priority campaigns, making sure that we have buy-in and support from our organizers, and ensuring that member voices are being heard. Rank-and-file control does not just mean that members run the union, it means that our compass must always be the rank-and-file, not entrenched organizers. Uniting all workers means being transparent in our plans and strategies, to make sure that we all stand together and speak with one voice. These combine to give us the means for aggressive struggle. Aggressive struggle means that we fight together against the boss, not abstractly in small working group meetings or even in grievances, but as an entire united membership of thousands of us. I look forward to coordinating that fight.