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If there is a shortage of available TA staffing, then a course must be cancelled or altered. This would not happen if the TA program existed purely to train graduate students (as the administration contends). Of course, the experience we have working as TAs is sometimes useful for our future academic careers. In just the same way, one's experience as an adjunct or junior faculty member is useful for one's career, but no one argues that adjunct faculty are not employees of the university. While at Yale, we receive our degree and we receive work-experience, both finishing our time as students and beginning our career as teachers. There is an overlapping of roles, but that should not blur the distinction between being a student and being a teacher. The two, after all, are quite different. We are paid for our work as TAs (although for obvious legal reasons the administration has been seeking creative accounting strategies to make it appear otherwise). Despite these strategies, the IRS considers all TAs "employees" and so taxes must be withheld on our salary. To take a look into the legal implications of “students” vs. “employees”, please look here. How would the collective bargaining process fit into an academic community such as Yale? Collective bargaining gracefully meshes with the traditions and collegiality of higher education, as suggested by the numerous graduate student and faculty unions already in existence. More than 40% of full-time faculty in the United States work under collective bargaining agreements, and the Association of American University Professors has endorsed graduate student unionization. Unionization concerns our relationship as teachers with the institution for which we work, not our relationship as students with our advisors. The administration, and not our individual advisors, determines salary, section sizes, and the allocation of TA positions. Teaching at Yale would improve if we had a say in such decisions, which is precisely what a union will provide. How is that different than the GSA? The GSA is the only graduate student representative body that the current Yale administration recognizes. The GSA's role is only to "discuss and comment" on the administration's policy decisions. In contrast, GESO seeks to negotiate a TA contract with the university. Once contract negotiations have drawn a clear line between graduate teacher- and student-issues, GESO would negotiate the former and the GSA would advise on the latter. At other universities with recognized TA unions, the student government structure continues to function. There is every reason to expect that the members of the GSA and GESO would continue to cooperate after a TA contract is settled, as they have for the past three years. The union seems like a confrontational way to go about changing things on campus. Isn’t there an easier way? Winning recognition for a union is the period of time when the sense of conflict around unionization is the highest. Once a union is in place, the only time there is real mobilization or tension on campus is when contract negotiations are looming. Having a recognized mechanism for negotiation within the University, though, will make our lobbying efforts more pointed. Instead of countless rallies and petitions, we’ll have negotiating sessions. Would a union ruin my relationship with my advisor? Not at all. Gordon Hewitt did a study a few years ago that indicated that unionization had no apparent impact on the relationship between a mentor and student. [.pdf] In final, a contract with clear job descriptions and a grievance procedure takes the guess work, or the “gray area”, out of TA or RA-work. Having a union doesn’t have much impact, if any, on a mentorship relationship. GESO belongs to a parent union, the UNITE-HERE. What kind of say do they have in what GESO does? Why are they invested in this fight anyway? Like all of the recognized TA unions, GESO works with an international union. After interviewing representatives from many different unions, graduate teachers decided to work with UNITE HERE. No one has been more successful negotiating good contracts with Yale than local 34 and local 35, both of which are UNITE HERE affiliates. We want to negotiate a good contract with Yale, and hence we have chosen to work with UNITE HERE locals 34 and 35. HERE is widely recognized as one of the most progressive unions in the country today. The current UNITE HERE Co-President, John Wilhelm (Yale College class of 1968) has pushed the labor movement and the AFL-CIO towards a broader advocacy for immigrant rights. President John Wilhelm, incidentally, was a leader of local 35 throughout the 1970's, and was in charge of the local 34 drive that got Yale University to recognize and negotiate their first contract in 1985. UNITE HERE is also renowned for using the strong democratic model of employee-led organizing committees to lead its locals. Thus, our affiliation with UNITE HERE leads directly to a GESO that is completely controlled by graduate teachers. Graduate students elect GESO members to serve as officers, run the daily affairs of the union, decide what issues to work on, and vote on major policy decisions and initiatives. You can find out more about the union, UNITE-HERE, at www.unitehere.org. What about our affiliation with the other workers on campus? Will they drag us into their problems with the Administration? Many of our members are proud to be in affiliation with Locals 34 and 35. We are also in a Federation with the hospital at the University and the New Haven community. The principle behind the Federation of Hospital and University Employees (FHUE) is that the more we can stand together behind common interests, the more we can achieve. That being said, each member of the FHUE has to be strong individually in order for us to be strong as a federation. Each organization has an independent governance structure. All major decisions to participate in joint actions must be put to a membership vote. The membership of each group has to decide for itself what the best course of action is. Why doesn't the University agree to enter into a collective bargaining agreement with its graduate teachers? It is not surprising that the Administration is resistant to change. Without a contract, graduate students are bound by university policies in which they have no say, and its decisions apply to everyone. There is no negotiation about these rules; the administration is free to change them arbitrarily whenever it wishes. However, once the administration recognizes GESO, union representation and a TA contract will become normal and stable elements of graduate school life at Yale, just as they have at other top graduate schools across the country. The reason that graduate teachers and researchers are organizing at Yale are no different than the reasons that graduate teachers and researchers have been organizing throughout public and private universities for the last few decades. Historic trends have changed the way universities look, shifting more grading and teaching to graduate teachers and researchers, and other nontenure-track workers, and away from tenured faculty. As we have become more responsible for the final product of the university—stellar teaching and research—we have asked for more of a say in the way our respective universities run. Increasingly, this has meant that more and more academics are turning to collective bargaining. These FAQ’s are intended to address some of the most frequent issues that come up for graduate teachers and researchers as they deliberate whether to join the union. You should contact your organizer in your department if you have more questions. If you don’t know who your organizer is, you can email your questions to geso@yaleunions.org. |
