Should graduate students unionize?

[Bill McBlueState]

I'm a grad student at UMass (Amherst), where the graduate students have been unionized since 1990. Since then, our minimum stipend has more than doubled, and we have free health and dental insurance. It sure seems like a good deal to me.

People complain, though, about three things: One is the mandatory union dues, which are 2% of pay. Another is that unionization has a negative effect on the one-on-one relationship graduate students cultivate with their faculty advisors. Finally, people complain about the fact that their union supports progressive political causes that they personally don't agree with.

What do DUers think about grad student unions? U. Penn. grads are fighting with their university to unionize, and I'm curious what progressives think about it.

[Chuletas]

1. GEO

I was in that union. It had great benefits, great pay and UMass in general was a fairly easy place to find an assistantship in which you were treated as a professional.

To be in a union requires dues to support the union. Nothing comes free. My only issue with the union was exactly what you were saying, there was a certain political flavor that I personally didn't always agree with and a certain sense of victimization for graduate students that were actually treated fairly by the university for the most part compared to most places. Some people also (said ducking) did not always work as hard as they should and left a bad taste in some of the administrator's mouth.

All said though, GS unions are great!

[bluestateguy]

2. I'm for it

I'm for it as long as it's a closed shop, otherwise why bother. The argument that it would compromise the one on one relationship with faculty is a load of crap with no basis in reality. As for the progressive political organizing, people should go to the union meetings and make themselves heard if they don't like the official union stance. I don't approve of how my income taxes are spent by this administration, but I still have to pay them. Finally, i support unionization, so long as the unions are by, for and made up of graduate students. Not the UAW or the Teamsters.

[Bill McBlueState]

6. GEO is affiliated with the UAW

I'm not sure what kind of affect the UAW has on our day-to-day operations, though. We're part of an amalgamated local, but the local president is himself a graduate student.

I know that in 2000, GEO informally endorsed Nader in opposition to the UAW. (Of course in this case, I'll be working to make sure that doesn't happen again!)

[bobbieinok]

3. better pay - good

negative effect on one-on-one relationship with faculty advisor - would depend on the personalities involved and maybe the field

I never had a real one-on-one relationship with my advisor, altho others did

[DrWeird]

4. Let's see...

100% raise vs. 2% dues. Don't have to work in the math department to figure that out.

[Cleita]

5. Everyone should unionize or you stand alone against

institutional conservative mandates. There are those who try to point out the "wrongs" of such organizations to make people unsure of their affiliations. I don't know why this would affect a one-on-one faculty and student relationship anymore than a worker having a working relationship with their manager or supervisor. Let's face it if you are going to have a personality conflict with an individual, it's going to happen anyway, union or no union.

On edit: I forgot to mention that a manager or faculty advisor is less likely to abuse their authority when you are backed by a union.

[Bill McBlueState]

on the advisor-student relationship

That's one of the most popular arguments against unionization, but honestly, most advisors WANT their students to be paid well and get good benefits. And faculty are generally unionized, so they understand.

It's not a problem I've had.

[Wickerman]

7. Seems very reasonable

best 2% investment you can make.

I'd like to see the negative impact with advisors documented. It could be tough for some of the advisors to adapt - they have been using grad assts as slave labor for eons.

People can go to the Union and make their voices heard that they don't approve of the choices the Union makes as far as support goes. It might not change anything, though, because often the folks they support supported the Union in the past or would in the future. Name of the game.

[T Wolf]

8. As a former grad assistant (twice)

in MA and PhD programs who did not have the benefit of a union, I can say that it is a good thing and I wish I had had one.

Complaint #1 - if they dislike the dues, then give them the opportunity to give back half of their stipend.

Complaint #2 - why would it have a negative effect on a relationship with a mentor? Aren't they both in the same "business" and don't faculty benefit from collective bargaining agreements? That sounds like a red herring to me.

Complaint #3 - support for causes should be a group decision by members of the group (union) and again, if they don't like an action of the group, then drop out and give back the benefits gained from membership. This just sounds like a typical repuke gripe of "I want mine but the hell with everybody else." Damn, who totally agrees 100% with everything that some unit they belong to does? Sometimes, my wife and I disagree over what to have for dinner. I guess I better divorce her.

[mike_c]

9. grad students at my university are organizing now...

...and I'm all for it. Until 1990 they were included under collective bargaining agreements between the California Faculty Assoc. and the California State University. In 1990 the grad students were dropped from collective bargaining, and (at least at my intitution) they have not received a single pay increase, COLA, or benefit since. Not one. Over the next two years their tuition and fees will nearly double (40 percent per year). I think collective barginning is the only way for them to get any representation or consideration at the budget table.

[LoneStarLiberal]

10. Take It From A Grad Student In Texas...Yes!

As a staff member and graduate student at a public university in North Texas, I'd say we could definitely use a graduate student union.

The state, in its infinite wisdom, removed the caps from all public universities to allow them to make up for their woeful budget shortfalls by shaking their students down a little more. My graduate student tuition therefore went up the maximum possible: 110%.

The problem here is that most grad students are from Texas. Down here you're indoctrinated from the earliest age that unions of any kind are bad, bad, bad. Case in point: That the Secretary of Education, the former Superintendant of the Houston ISD, called the NEA a terrorist organization earlier this week went without comment outside of teachers here in Texas because it's just accepted that unions are evil and we should all be so thankful that we have "the right to work."

So I'd say go for it. As universities become more and more corporate in their management structure and view of both undergraduate and graduate students, unionization can help to protect you from the kinds of bullshit stops they've pulled on us in Texas.

[veganwitch]

11. is membership compulsory?

if they dont like it, they dont have the join (if thats an option.)

and of course, in a union, you have a vote, if you dont like the politics you can talk about it and bring the issue up.

and like many things, people generally dont like the costs (dues, politics) but they love the benefits.

[markses]

14. If you make the given percentage in your card drive

Then the school is a union shop. Period. As it should be.

[Chuletas]

16. voluntary

Some people choose to pay an agency fee which is a little less than the union dues, but pretty much everyone pays. There is a tuition and fee waiver, health care and the pay is pretty darn good for part time work. Most of the folks I worked FOR there tended to be much more progressive/leftist than I was, so generally they were happy because I was happy with pay/working conditions.

The key of course was (as I beat a dead horse) is that some union members concentrated more on being a union member than being a student/University employee. But that happens everywhere. My current union endorsed dean and gave him more than a million dollars, unfortunately I was kinda blindsided by this, which means I should probably pay better attention to where my dues are going.

[Bill McBlueState]

19. yes

Well, membership isn't compulsory, but you have to pay some form of fee to the union. Members pay 2% of their income; non-members can't vote, but are still covered by the contract. Non-members pay an agency fee that varies, but is typically around 1.75%. Something like 80% of the bargaining unit pays the full membership fee.

But like other posters have said, if you like free health and dental care and a minimum stipend -- AND if you like having other students do all the bargaining for you -- you shouldn't mind paying dues.

[markses]

12. Grad Students are workers in most Universities

U Penn Graduate students just did a 2 day strike this week.

Graduate students should definitely unionize. The so-called apprenticeship model is nothing but a cruel joke anymore - the universities suck the living labor of graduate students and fixed-term employees with the barest of compensation, collecting 10 times in tuition what they pay out - and that includes tuition waivers.

The treatment of graduate students and fixed term employees in our universities is a national disgrace.

[sangh0]

13. They complain about the 2% dues?

How do such stupid people get to be graduate students? I thought that required a college degree

[Cleita]

17. A lot of people complain about that in any union membership.

Considering I always made almost twice the money in any union job than non-union, I always considered the dues a good investment. Yet, there are those who resented paying them.

[Hammie]

15. It depends

When I was in school, the liberal arts grad students wanted a union because they didn't get alot of money for being a TA but the science and engineering students didn't want a union because they got a lot of money from research grants as well as their TA money. A union at least as proposed then would have given every grad student the same amount which was more than the liberal arts guys were getting but substantially less than what the science and engineering guys were getting.

[markses]

20. That was an old administrative trick

To categorize the workforce as flat rate per-hour or credit rather than according to job differentiation. It's an old tactic favored by university administrators because they feel like they have a natural wedge between the sciences and the humanities. It's nonsense, and the union - should it have been successful in forming - would've gone on strike before accepting such a bargain.

[Bill McBlueState]

21. "substantially less"

Our union contract has always specified a minimum stipend, which individual departments are free to exceed if they can. As a result, the better-paid science and engineering students tend to be apathetic toward the union, but it's not like they're getting paid a lot less as a result of unionization.

I'm the steward for the Astronomy department, and it's like herding cats to get anyone to come to a membership meeting.

[markses]

22. I'm sure you also have the problem of foreign national students

Who are terrified of losing their student visas. Needless to say, the administration winks and nods at encouraging this fear, even as the federal requirement for student visas become more Draconian. Administration tactics are truly despicable on this question.

[markses]

18. Answers

1) 2% dues - The dues pay for something. They pay for your power to bargain collectively on such issues as health care (including vision and dentistry) - an increasingly important benefit as many graduate students have families, and move a distance to attend school, thereby tearing a spouse away from a job. Moreover, the dues go to bargaining power for better stipends and contracts. Without the dues, you have no contract, which means that whatever benefits a graduate student has been bequeathed by the administration can be pulled in a so-called budget crunch. The dues are a pittance compared to the benefits they produce. It's not even an argument.

2) The union in no way interferes with faculty relations at the committee level. If they do interfere, it is because of faculty oppression and recalcitrance, and not because of the union. Faculty-student relationships are not the issue; in fact, most faculty in liberal arts support unionization (there are, of course, differences in the sciences). The union does not attempt to influence academics at all , nor should it. The union is solely concerned with the economic relations between the university administration and their employees. I can't even imagine a situation in which the faculty-student academic/professional relation should even take notice of the union. A completely bogus objection, with no basis in actual practice of graduate education or labor.

3) Again. The union should be solely concerned with the economic relationship between the administration and their graduate employees. To the extent that a union gets leverage by being allied with other local unions (not least the university maintanence and public safety unions, should these exist), these will be a part of their activities. The union must justify political activities as relating to the concrete needs of its constituents in the local (i.e., in the particular university). But the members get only as much say in those decisions as their vote. It is, quite frankly, too bad for them if the union votes for some direction that they don't agree with. they can argue against that in the union meetings, in TRUE DEMOCRATIC FORM.

[Lisa]

23. our school unionized several years ago ...

University of Victoria, in Canada. We actually have a Graduate Students' Society, and also a union (under the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which I think is the largest union in the country) for those who work as teaching or research assistants.

http://gss.uvic.ca/aboutus.htm
http://web.uvic.ca/~cupe4163/

Seems to be a success so far. There was some complaining (from the computer science people mainly) about leftists at first. But recently the union managed to get some concessions from the administration re: employment hours.

Those horror stories one hears, about supervisors forcing their students to put in vast amounts of unpaid work not related to their degrees ... like babysitting their kids? Based on my experiences here, and talking to other students at unionized schools in Canada -- conditions for students have improved, since they now have a formal organization in place to deal with such problems. I personally am not involved in union activities here, but I was a grad ombudperson for our department for a couple of years prior to the TA union -- and we pretty much had to depend on people being decent to us. Most of the faculty were ... but it's the one or two others who end up causing a headache for the rest of the department.