Advertisement

News, Views and Careers for All of Higher Education

Aug. 14, 2006

State of the TA Unions

The video had the same amateur quality as those that circulate on YouTube and other Internet sites. Set to the lyrics of “We’re Not Going to Take It,” a handheld camera followed friends of the graduate student unionization movement to a New York University alumni fund-raising event this past year that featured the unions’ public enemy of the moment, NYU President John Sexton.

Looking for a job?
See all 209 new postings
Browse all job listings:
Faculty: 3,626
Administrative: 1,892
Executive: 169
FEATURED EMPLOYERS
Post a job

Related stories

The party crashers did their best to disrupt the function, and the roughly 100 labor organizers from around the country who watched the screening on Friday — some of whom appeared in the footage — cheered the effort. If that wasn’t enough to stir the audience at the start of the 15th annual Coalition of Graduate Employees Union conference, in Philadelphia, former Yale University graduate student Carlos Aramayo’s challenge to his “brothers and sisters” set the tone.

“University administrators are trying to put together a national message, and we haven’t been good enough in pushing our movement,” said Aramayo, a representative from Graduate Employees and Student Organization at Yale.

The administrators’ agenda, according to speakers: increased centralization of power, and a more corporate model for graduate education.

The administrators’ document of choice, speakers said, is a report released last fall by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation that speakers say decried the lack of strong leadership from deans at graduate schools and called for a more “cosmopolitan” approach to the Ph.D, that focuses on students’ marketability. Aramayo said he does not want to see students pushed through their programs under a tight watch.

(Via e-mail, Earl Lewis, Emory University’s provost and a leader in the foundation’s Ph.D. initiative, said the report was about helping graduate students. “We looked at mentor-mentee relations, time-to-degree, diversity, jobs inside and outside of the academy, community-based scholarship and the development of citizen scholars. Today we face ever greater competition from abroad and our preeminent standing is not guaranteed. To remain in a leading position we must periodically examine how well we are meeting the need of all involved — faculty, students and their employees.")

Anita Seth, staff organizer at GESO, said while conditions for graduate employees have generally improved over the past 10 years, including better tuition breaks for Ph.D. students and improved health benefits, “I feel like we aren’t winning on issues that are most important to us,” she said. Foremost is the need to rely less on adjunct and non-tenure track faculty, Seth said.

Representatives from teaching assistant unions at public institutions said they worry that a 2004 ruling by the National Labor Relations Board that classified graduate assistants as students, rather than workers, will embolden their own administrators to be tougher on TA unions. Some speakers already said they have found negotiating a new contract to be harder since the ruling, which applies only to private institutions, as publics are governed by state labor laws. But speakers did not cite specific examples of how the NLRB ruling was having an impact outside of NYU.

Jack P. Nightingale, assistant director of the American Federation of Teachers organization and field services department, said the movement should see some of its greatest successes at public colleges, where the NLRB doesn’t have authority. “That’s where we are concentrating our efforts until we exhaust that group,” Nightingale said. “It’s about changing the political landscape state by state.” He said 1,400 full-time, non-tenure track faculty have in recent years joined AFT in Michigan, a state where the graduate unionization effort has seen some gains, including a first contract at Western Michigan University.

Graduate student union leaders from public institutions had the majority of good news to share during a conference tradition where attendees take turns updating each other on the past year. Scott Bruton, one of the graduate student leaders at Rutgers’ American Association of University Professors-AFT chapter said that stipends and health benefits are improving. In the latest contract, teaching assistants and graduate assistants at Rutgers no longer have to pay an annual $1,100 student fee, and annual pay also increased from $14,000 to $18,000, Bruton said.

At the University of Oregon, teaching assistants will receive a 10 percent raise over two years, according to Aaron Greer of the Graduate Teaching Fellow Federation-AFT chapter. Mark Supanich, political education committee chairman of the Teaching Assistants’ Association, the AFT local at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said he is heartened when new graduate student chapters open. “You can’t just worry about yourself,” he said. “You have to set precedent and fight on a broad range. This has to be a national movement.”

And the conference had a focus on national issues. Sessions ranged from “Implementing National Contract Standards,” to “Building Campus Coalitions” to “Lobbying/Political Mobilization.” Jane Buck, the former president of AAUP who was arrested for disorderly conduct for blocking a street in front of NYU, urged attendees to use her organization’s resources.

The NYU graduate student labor strike served as the backdrop for many discussions. Bruton said groups at the conference voted to make the strike a focal point of the coming year. Michael Palm, chairperson of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee at the university, said even though the strike had taken its toll on the organizers, he “feels like a rock star” at the convention, which is a good place to recharge before the battle continues in the fall.

The conflict at NYU is over the right of graduate students at private institutions to unionize. NYU’s GSOC is the only official graduate assistant union to have ever won recognition at a private institution, but the university exercised its legal right to stop dealing with the union after the NLRB ruling. NYU officials say that the union has hurt the academic management of the university and that there are other means besides a union to represent graduate students. Many graduate students with teaching duties returned to work in the spring, and some doubt remains about GSOC’s ability to get NYU back to the bargaining table. But there wasn’t much doubt among the convention faithful.

“We’re behind you 100 percent,” Michael Janson, a member of Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania, told the NYU contingent. “We’re going to win. This is our most important fight.”

Arayamo said the situation has already shown the graduate student organizations’ collective spirit — representatives from Yale, University of Illinois and University of Massachusetts, among others, joined their NYU peers for rallies and protests during the past year. Susan Valentine, a spokeswoman for NYU’s GSOC, said the movement is about collectivity. “Their work is the same work we do [At NYU]. We are looking for respect, whether or not we’re at a public or a private college,” she said.

Aramayo said coalition building — with both undergraduate students, full-time faculty and other non-graduate student unions — is vital. Part of the challenge, numerous speakers mentioned, is in convincing both administrators and outsiders that graduate students are employees whose work is considered true labor. Or, as Oregon’s Greer put it: “So far the message has been, ‘We teach college for Christ’s sake. We aren’t replaceable.’”

— Elia Powers

Got something to say?


Want it on paper? Print this page.
Know someone who’d be interested? Forward this story.
Want to stay informed? Sign up for free daily news e-mail.

Advertisement

Comments

Anita Seth remarks that grad student unions are making little progress on their chief goals: part-time and adjunct teaching.

The question for me is whether grad student unions are actually making that problem worse. In the cases I’m familiar with, grad student unions have pushed for things like an end to dissertation completion deadlines, establishment of a right to teach (or at least a substantial increase in grad student teaching).

It seems to me that by locking in grad students’ identity as teachers, not students, grad student unions are actually contributing to the problem. They are encouraging and/or demanding that universities employ large numbers of grad students and keep them in those jobs. While this might cut into the number of part-time / adjunct teachers, it simply replaces them by another group of second-class citizens: unionized grad students. How exactly are grad students unions planning / acting to add more full-time faculty positions?

Dave S., Associate Prof at Land Grant U., at 10:00 am EDT on August 14, 2006

grad unions and the profession

as a grad student, i was heavily involved in the unionization movement at our land grant institution. my dream was always that the unions would have the vision to not only improve the lives of grad students, but change the profesion: first, by pushing for more tenure track jobs, and keeping the lines already in place; and second, by pushing for amenable tenure requirements that reflect the crisis in academic publishing (esp. books), and that help to somehow counter the “star system,” i.e. higher teaching loads for tenured and tenure-track faculty, etc. (this might be my own resentment talking, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.)

Elizabet, Assistant Professor at Private Technical University, at 11:35 am EDT on August 14, 2006

Dave S. misses the point. He’s against TA unions — and that’s his right. But it should be the decision of workers, not employers, whether or not they unionize. It seems pretty clear that when given a free choice, graduate teaching assistants do want to unionize, and it is despicable for universities to prevent this.

Paul Hardy, at 1:35 pm EDT on August 14, 2006

Effectiveness is most important

Paul’s comment is reflective of “rights discourse gone wild". If unions are actually not better for students (in simple monetary and policy terms) then why should University administration accede to their demands? Often it is the boisterous and loudmouthed few who condemn all future students to a regime of unionization that costs them money, can harm the student-faculty relationship, and locks students into a mentality that no longer serves them well.

Jeff, Doctoral student at Land grant U, at 4:05 pm EDT on August 14, 2006

As a recent Ph.D., we were fortunate that the graduate labor union did not gain steam at my institution. I was personally opposed to graduate unionization because the proposed model (although never very well articulated by the graduate labor union) would have seemingly removed any merit basis to allocation of stipends, fellowships, or duties. It looked to equalize benefits across the whole graduate population... a textbook example of economic disincentives.

And, I agree with Jeff on the “boisterous few.” Out of 1,000 TAs, the graduate labor union rarely drew more than a few dozen signatures on petitions or students at interest meetings. But,they sure were loud and adamant that they represented the “voice of graduate students.” I generally avoided even looking at institutions where TAs were unionized.

K.T., at 7:45 pm EDT on August 14, 2006

Jeff said: “Often it is the boisterous and loudmouthed few who condemn all future students to a regime of unionization that costs them money, can harm the student-faculty relationship, and locks students into a mentality that no longer serves them well.”

I’m compelled to ask what sort of evidence you have for asserting that a regime of unionization costs money or harms the student-faculty relationship.

I’m going to assume that the costs refer to union dues. However, the dues are used to improve one’s pay and working conditions — I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to compare union dues with the dues academics pay to their professional associations. Both types of organizations work to enhance the status of their individual members. In addition, if the payment of union dues yields higher wages and better benefits, is it still a net loss?

As for it harming the student-faculty relationship, there is no evidence in over 35 years of grad employee unionization to support the idea that it is harmful. Top-flight public universities like California, Wisconsin, and Michigan — the latter two of which have been unionized 30+ years — are still producing high caliber academics who are finding tenured jobs at the top of their fields. I’ve heard nothing from faculty members at these institutions to suggest that the traditional mentoring aspects of graduate education have been harmed by unionization.

Graduate employee unions have made life better for grads. That’s why grad employees at Western Michigan University and the University of Illinois — Springfield both recently made the choice to unionize in the last year.

And administrators don’t resist unionization because they “know what’s best for students.” They resist unionization because they don’t want to cede any power over their employees. If administrators were concerned with what was in the best interests of graduate employees, they’d be providing them with adequate pay and benefits to begin with.

cjg, at 6:20 am EDT on August 15, 2006

“I’m going to assume that the costs refer to union dues. However, the dues are used to improve one’s pay and working conditions — I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to compare union dues with the dues academics pay to their professional associations.”

Depending on the state, union dues may not be voluntary. Professional dues are... i.e. I no longer pay any professional association dues. So, in states where dues are required, I would find the use of coercion a huge difference.

K.T., at 7:25 am EDT on August 15, 2006

The portrait of what has been happening at NYU in this article is somewhat misleading. NYU did not merely “exercise its legal right” not to renew the grad union contract. NYU’s administration decided to use the NLRB ruling to designate one area where it could concentrate more power back into the administrative offices. It has never really been for them a question about how effective unions are or are not, but instead NYU’s actions reflect a national movement to change the structure of universities so that administrators can make more decisions without having to consult organizations outside their walls. The Wilson report, also and not coincidentally, recommends a concentration of power within administrative offices. Provost Earl Lewis from Emory, who was a part of this project and is quoted in the above article, articulates one of the factors driving this change. What is happening at NYU is one possible response to this increased pressure, and, as such, other universities, both public and private, are looking at how NYU’s administrators are handling the situation. The threats over job security, the blacklisting, the convoluted beaurocratic gymnastics that pose as a mockery of either student or worker rights, and their pr machine, headed by John Beckman, are the tools that those administrators have fashioned to fight against their own graduate workers who defend their right to unionize. And NYU is sharing what it considers to be its triumphs with other institutions, as those other institutions are pressuring NYU to succeed in its fight against the graduate union. Thus, this is not just a local problem, with a particularly problematic university president and a pr team that fights dirty, but a precident, an indication of how the suggestions in the Wilson report presage horrible things to come. The question one should be asking, instead of whether grad unions asking for dues is the correct form, is whether, as a nation, the consolidation of power within administrative offices is the way we want our universities to go, or whether we would like the people who do the teaching and researching to be able to preserve at least a minimum of decision-making, and whether grad unions are the most powerful vehicle available to preserve those rights for this group of workers who have been made vulnerable because of the NLRB’s decision.

Sarah, NYU, at 7:55 pm EDT on August 15, 2006

K.T. refers to the requirement that TAs working with a collective bargaining agreeement pay uinion dues as “coercion". What a bunch of nonsense! A collective bargaining agreement is a binding contractutal relationship. The idea that one can enjoy the protections of a CBA and pay nothing is preposterous.

PFS, at 7:55 pm EDT on August 15, 2006

Well said, Sarah. It always amazes me how some observers can denounce what they call union “coercion” (in the form of mandatory dues) but are completely silent on the coercion (in the form of blacklisting, threats, and utterly unilateral decision-making) made by University administrators determined to have their way in the face of a broad majority support for a union among grad students. And this is not a local problem peculiar to TAs. NYU is a great example of where higher education may be going in this country—and it’s not a pretty sight.

Melocoton, NYU, at 12:50 pm EDT on August 16, 2006

Arrest

Why weren’t these people arrested for tresspassing and harrassment?

The university shouldn’t be negociating with them — they should have been fired without benefits on day one of the strike.

Kevin, Undergraduate, at 3:05 pm EDT on August 18, 2006

Only in a right to work jurisdiction

“K.T. refers to the requirement that TAs working with a collective bargaining agreeement pay uinion dues as “coercion". What a bunch of nonsense! A collective bargaining agreement is a binding contractutal relationship.”

This would be true only a right to work jurisdiction. In any jurisdiction where people must be fired if they do not pay the union against their will, the requisite free will to form a binding contractual relationship is absent. The fact that the unions cannot survive without this coercion is telling.

JBM, at 9:35 am EDT on August 19, 2006

Advertisement

 Jobs Related to State of the TA Unions

or search for jobs directly.

Simulation Center Director
San Juan College

Requisition Number: 2890 Number of Positions: 1 Full or Part-Time: Full-time Wage: $55,000-$72,000 Duties & Responsibilities: ... see job

Professor of School Psychology (NCE1409)
National-Louis University

Today, NLU serves more than 12,000 students from five Chicago area campuses, in addition to campuses in three states and ... see job

Open Rank Faculty in Infectious Disease
East Carolina University

East Carolina University, a constituent institution of the University of North Carolina, is a doctoral institution with an ... see job

Adjunct Faculty, Dept. of Foreign Languages (Part-Time)
Bridgewater State College, MA

BSC is one of the largest and most exciting centers for higher education in the commonwealth. Here in our idyllic setting, ... see job

Human Resources Instructor
South Texas College

South Texas College Job Announcement # 2010 – 3031 Position pending Board approval of FY10 Budget Please note that only ... see job

Digital Art Adjunct Faculty Pool
Howard Community College

HCC is seeking to create a pool for positions in digital media. There is an opening in the Spring Semester for a Monday class ... see job

Culinary Arts Instructor
Lincoln Land Community College

The college is seeking applicants for a full-time, tenure track faculty position in Culinary Arts beginning fall semester of ... see job

Associate/Full Professor — Novel Materials Chemistry/Nanotechnology
CUNY—City College

CCNY is a campus of the City University of New York (CUNY). It is CUNY’s Flagship Campus for Science and Engineering, and ... see job

Tenure Track Faculty Position in Experimental Particle Physics
University of Rochester

The Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Rochester invites applications for a tenure-track faculty ... see job

Project Maps Original Cataloger (UL253)
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

The University of Minnesota is a premier employer and a talent magnet attracting leading faculty and staff from around the ... see job