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GESO was formed in 1991 by a pre-existing group called TA Solidarity after the administration refused to engage in meaningful discussion with graduate students about proposals to restructure the Graduate School, which cut TA positions by 30%, placed restrictions on teaching for students in the fifth year and beyond, and imposed a six-year registration cut-off. While never leading to formal negotiations, the activism of 1991-1992 helped bring about changes that the Yale administration had long resisted, including a pay raise for TAs, an end to the six-year rule, and the establishment of Yale's first teacher-training program. In 1995, after the Yale administration refused to recognize the will of a majority of graduate teachers in the humanities and social sciences who had signed cards and voted in an election to endorse GESO as their bargaining agent, graduate teachers embarked on a historic grade strike that would bring national attention to this labor dispute at Yale. Following this period of activism, the Yale administration partially responded to several GESO demands , most notably , by granting all incoming Ph.D. students tuition waivers and a standard nine-month stipend. In the decade that has followed this historic stand, the campaign for graduate employees organizing rights has escalated dramatically. The fight at Yale sparked graduate organizing drives at universities across the country, which intensified when a Clinton-appointed National Labor Relations Board reversed a longstanding legal decision to make graduate teaching and research assistants employees, rather than students, under the National Labor Relations Act. The reversal spawned a wave of organizing activity and a number of union elections at other universities, resulting in the first union contract at a private university, New York University. Additionally, thousands of teachers and researchers at public universities , including the University of California and California State systems, the University of Washington, the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) , won union recognition and contracts in the past few years. During this period of time, graduate teachers and researchers at Yale have formed a more active partnership with the existing unions at Yale, Locals 34 & 35, to collectively pressure the Yale to grant union status and fair union contracts to all of Yale's employees. In 2004, a reversal of the 2001 NLRB decision by a Bush-appointed NLRB, stripped graduate teaching assistants of their employee status and organizing protections in this country. Consequently, the undisclosed results of NLRB union elections at Brown, Columbia, and University of Pennsylvania were tossed out, and NYU refused to negotiate a second contract with its graduate teaching assistants. GESO has spearheaded a national movement of graduate employee unions to combat this assault on worker's rights and ensure a second contract for graduate employees at NYU. In the past year, organizers and members of Yale have worked to secure everything from the equal treatment of international students at Yale to childcare subsidies for working graduate families. Over the last five years, a majority of graduate teachers at Yale have consistently demonstrated their desire for union representation, which has been officially certified by the Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Byciewicz. While the Bush administration has transformed the legal context for our fight, GESO continues to successfully advocate for protections and higher working standards for graduate employees at Yale and beyond.