University Roundup
Graduate Student Workers Need More than Prestige

Story by Jennifer John and
Mike Rosenbaum

“Prestige is not enough,” said UAW Region 9A Director Phil Wheeler. “Academic student employees are workers, and workers do better when they are represented by unions.”

That’s why the UAW is helping graduate student workers organize at several campuses, including Columbia University, New York University, Brown University and Tufts University.

TA work ranges from grading papers and conducting discussion sessions for professors to teaching classes on their own.

The UAW already represents more than 15,000 graduate student employees at the University of California, the University of Washington, the University of Massachusetts, and thousands of clerical and support staff at Barnard, Teachers’ College and other universities.

Columbia University
About 1,100 graduate student teaching assistants at Columbia University are awaiting an NLRB decision on whether they are entitled to organize a union.

The National Labor Relations Board hearings began in April 2001 and ended in October. A decision is expected in early 2002.

Back in March 2001, union organizers filed a petition with the NLRB to request a union representation election at Columbia, which is in New York City. Just a month before that at New York University, 1,400 graduate student TAs affiliated with UAW Local 2110. The Columbia TAs would also be under Local 2110, which already represents the university’s 800 clerical workers.

Organizers at Columbia say they want a union “to bargain with the university over employment matters such as wages, working conditions and health care.”

“We are looking to equalize stipends across departments, for increases in the minimum for stipends and a reduction in health care fees,” said David Carpio, a biology graduate student from Washington, D.C., and member of the union’s organizing committee.

Up until last year, when the university increased TA salaries to $15,000 a year--conveniently coinciding with the union drive--most TAs made about $12,500 a year. But some were paid as little as $3,000 a year.

New York University
Strike talk has resurfaced at New York University as the Graduate Student Organizing Committee/UAW continues negotiating for a first contract.

The graduate assistants overwhelmingly passed a strike authorization vote last November. A strike deadline will likely be set in the spring.

“Bargaining is dragging on and on and on,” said Local 2110 organizer Lisa Jessup. “It took the university four months to make its second proposal on economic issues.”

NYU opposed the organizing drive from the campaign’s beginning in 1997. After the workers voted to join Local 2110 in 2000, the university appealed the vote to the NLRB. The board upheld the students’ right to form a union.

The workers were prepared to take a strike vote last March until NYU agreed to bargain with the union. Talks began in April.

Jessup said that it’s been a “struggle” at times to maintain the campaign’s momentum. However, “at this stage NYU is doing a lot of the work for us. Their proposals are so outrageous, the members are fired up” about the campaign. “I think we’re getting stronger,” she said.

Brown University
Balloting in the historic union representation election for graduate assistants at Brown University in Providence, R.I., was held Dec. 6-7.

Voter turnout appeared high, with more than 90 percent of eligible graduate employees voting. Brown is the second private university and the first Ivy League school in the nation to vote on unionization.

“We are ecstatic about finally getting the opportunity to walk into the voting booth and mark our ballots with a big ‘YES’ for graduate employee unionization at Brown,” said Sheyda Jahanbani, a teaching assistant in the Department of History and union supporter. “For graduate employees across the disciplines, this is the moment we have all been looking forward to—when we stand up to be counted.”

However, university administrators have said they are considering requesting review of the election, delaying the NLRB’s vote count. State legislators, community groups, faculty and undergraduates have urged the university to refrain from appealing the decision.

Brown academic student workers petitioned for a union election last May. The administration opposed the graduate workers’ right to an election, claiming they were not employees.

On Nov. 16, the NLRB found that Brown graduate students were legally considered employees under the National Labor Relations Act and were entitled to a union election.

“The intensive anti-union campaign run by the Brown administration resembles corporate union-busting campaigns. It’s time for the Brown community, the labor community and the larger Providence community to send a message to pressure Brown to stop the disgusting anti-union campaign,” said Phil Wheeler, Region 9A director.

Tufts University
Tufts University teaching assistants and research assistants filed a petition Dec. 7 with the NLRB in Boston for union representation.

“Recent administrative changes at Tufts have made it crystal clear to many graduate student employees that the people who do a lot of the teaching and research at Tufts need and deserve a say in their working lives,” said Carl Martin, a Tufts teaching assistant and Ph.D. student in English.

The Medford-Mass., university is just outside Boston. About 350 TAs would be represented in the unit. Most TAs at Tufts make between $4,500 and $6,500 a semester, but some are paid as little as $2,500.