Governor Abigail Spanberger is considering a bill that would expand collective bargaining for some government employees but deny it to others.
Service workers like janitors and security guards who work for colleges and universities will be allowed to engage in collective bargaining under a bill lawmakers are sending to the governor. But college professors and graduate students are excluded from the bill.
"We're gutted that faculty and graduate students have been left behind," says Bethany Letiecq, president of the George Mason University chapter of the American Association of University Professors. "Particularly at a time when we are under attack from the highest levels of government, collective bargaining certainly would have been meaningful for us in the fight to protect ourselves and to protect ourselves and to protect our academic freedom rights."
Andy Gneiting is a recycling worker at the University of Virginia who has been advocating as part of United Campus Workers of Virginia.
"In one way, it was really kind of encouraging to see service workers get included in there," Gneiting says. "The other side of it was that there are these people who I've been working with as members of our union across job categories, faculty grads. I've learned everything about organizing and everything about labor from them. And to see them get cut out was really disappointing."
Governor Spanberger has the ability to amend the bill and add professors and graduate students, allowing them to engage in collective bargaining. She has four weeks to make a decision, and then the General Assembly will consider any changes she proposes in April.
