Union Efforts by Grad Students

Focus THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION Union Efforts by Grad Students As a Chronicle of Higher Education individual subscriber, you receive premium, unrestricted access to the entire Chronicle Focus collection. Curated by our newsroom, these booklets compile the most popular and relevant higher-education news to provide you with in-depth looks at topics affecting campuses today. The Chronicle Focus collection explores student alcohol abuse, racial tension on campuses, and other emerging trends that have a significant impact on higher education.

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hat it means to be a graduate student changed profoundly on August 23, 2016, when the National Labor Relations Board ruled that graduate students are also employees ofW the colleges where they work and study. The decision opened the door for the students at private colleges to enter into collective-bargaining agreements with their employers. Gathered here are articles about the ruling and how it may affect the relationship between graduate students and their institutions.

How One College Became Ground Zero for Grad-Student Unionization 4 What began as a struggle for better working conditions at New School has taken on wider implications. Ruling Pushes Door to Grad-Student Unions ‘Wide Open’ 7 A surge in organizing is predicted in the wake of a major decision in a case involving Columbia University. A New Era for Grad-Student Organizing 10 Changes are feeding a growing appetite among graduate students to fight for better working conditions. For Research Assistants, NLRB Decision Marks a Big Win 13 Teaching assistants weren’t the only ones celebrating the National Labor Relations Board’s ruling. NYU’s Graduate Union: Success Story or Cautionary Tale? 16 The experience of the only private college with a graduate union offers lessons for other institutions. What It Means When Harvard Tells Its Faculty How to Talk About Graduate-Student Unions 19 The elite university has issued 15 dos and don’ts to aid discussion of unionization efforts with students. NLRB’s Graduate-Assistant Ruling: Bad News for Administrators and Students 21 The decision in the Columbia University case will have an unfortunate effect on private education. Graduate-Student Unions Mean Good News for Professors, Too 24 Collective bargaining is unlikely to damage the mentor-mentee relationship. Academic Work Is Labor, Not Romance 26 The academy is merely another realm of economic life, the NLRB ruling tells us, so let’s stop pretending.

Cover illustration by Tim Cook for The Chronicle

22 c a mp u s v iol e nc e t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2016

By VIMAL PATEL

niversity administrators don’t to unionize, fueled by hope that the Brown ruling view Tania Aparicio as an employee, will fall, and by the example of New York Univer- but she feels like one. sity, which in 2013 became the only private college The sociology Ph.D. student at the to voluntarily recognize a graduate-student union. New School teaches two undergrad- Like students on other campuses, those at the Uuate courses, holds office hours, answers students’ New School say their frustrations grew over time, emails, and performs research unrelated to her slowly boiling to the point where they decided to dissertation for professors. form a union and then take their case to the la- “When I had an issue with my pay stub,” Ms. bor board. Yet Ms. Aparicio and others also say Aparicio says, “I was referred to human resources their situation stands out as something of a perfect and payroll. I wasn’t referred to my adviser or my storm of graduate-student woes in part because dean, because I’m an employee, and those are my the New School offers relatively low financial sup- wages.” port despite being located in an expensive city like To Ms. Aparicio’s frustration, however, she and New York. other graduate assistants at the New School are Top administrators at the college acknowledge not seen as employees and do not have a legal right the hardships for the graduate students, but uni- to collectively bargain for better pay and working versity lawyers argue that the money graduate as- conditions. sistants receive is actually financial aid, not pay. That may change soon. Last month the Nation- Moreover, according to legal briefs filed by the al Labor Relations Board said it would review a university, the purpose of these positions “is to as- bid by New School graduate students to unionize, sist students, and not create employment opportu- a move that could reshape how graduate students nities.” are viewed at private colleges nationwide. A 2004 ruling by the board involving Brown ‘WE FELT POWERLESS’ University found that graduate students at private colleges can’t unionize because their relationship Ms. Aparicio says she lives frugally. She lives with universities is primarily academic, not eco- close to campus to save on commuting costs, in a nomic. (Unionization at public colleges, mean- rent-stabilized Chinatown walk-up that she shares while, is governed by state law.) In taking the case, with three roommates. Some weeks during her the labor board is signaling a willingness — and graduate program, she says, her food budget was many labor experts say a likelihood — to overturn tiny and she ate just one meal a day. the Brown ruling. These days, she counts herself among the lucky The review of the New School case comes as students who have on-campus academic jobs. graduate students at several other private univer- When she started at the New School as a master’s sities like Yale, Harvard, and Columbia are seeking student in 2012, however, she worked at one time

4 union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2016 or another as a babysitter, a graphic designer, a re- ing four courses, and other Ph.D. students wanted searcher for a human-rights group, and a produc- to know why financial support was so paltry. The tion assistant for commercials. response, he says, was vague and unsatisfying. “No Even so, Ms. Aparicio has accrued more one would take any responsibility for our situa- than $80,000 in debt to finance her graduate tion,” Mr. Picek says. “We felt powerless.” studies, and she’s not alone. About a third of Afterward, over drinks with a fellow dejected the people who completed a Ph.D. at the New student, he floated the idea of a union. In the days School from 2004 to 2013, the most recent peri- that followed, he learned others were thinking the od for which data are available, reported accru- same. Last fall Mr. Picek, now a union organizer, ing more than $50,000 in debt during graduate and others collected signatures supporting a Unit- school, an unusually high rate, according to fed- ed Auto Workers collective-bargaining unit from eral data. more than 70 percent of the 350 or so graduate Moreover, many report difficult working condi- teaching and research assistants who would be tions. Ms. Aparicio, for example, didn’t know she part of the unit. The New School has about 3,500 would have classes to teach until a week before graduate students. they began this semester, making financial plan- Armed with the support of a majority of grad- ning uncertain. “There’s no way for us to know uate assistants, the graduate students asked the how we’re going to make a living,” she says, “or university to recognize the union in December. whether we should take a year off or a leave of ab- When they did not receive recognition, they filed sence because it’s not going to be possible to do their petition with the labor board. both school and work outside the university.” In an interview, Mr. Van Zandt, who became Students say they have been raising these con- president in 2011, said he was sympathetic to the cerns to administrators for years. Oliver Picek, students’ concerns and that he was “sort of as- a fifth-year economics Ph.D. student, recalls be- tounded” at the financial challenges faced by the ing particularly frustrated in a town-hall meeting students when he first heard them. with President David E. Van Zandt in 2012. Mr. He said, however, that the New School doesn’t Picek, who earned about $16,000 that year teach- have the resources of a traditional research univer-

Tania Aparicio, a Ph.D. student in sociology at the New School, saves money by sharing a walk-up apartment with three roommates. Despite her work as a teaching assistant, she has built up $80,000 in debt for her graduate studies.

o c t ob e r 2016 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s 5

MARK ABRAMSON FOR THE CHRONICLE sity. With a relatively small endowment of about not really relevant to me what we call them. I’m $300 million, the university depends on tuition focused on the best way to support them going for- and fees for about 90 percent of its budget. While ward as opposed to what the lawyers might say at most colleges “fully fund” their doctoral students, the NLRB.” meaning they cover tuition and offer a stipend for living expenses, most New School Ph.D. students ‘PING-PONG JURISPRUDENCE’ pay at least some tuition, and stipends often don’t cover the cost of living in New York. In exchange The New School graduate students aren’t the for a stipend, graduate students at the New School only ones taking aim at the 2004 Brown ruling. A often hold teaching and research assistantships. A petition filed by Columbia graduate students may teaching assistantship, which is the most common, also be taken up by the labor board. is supposed to require 10 hours of work a week and While the New School students’ petition takes provides $4,228 per course. direct aim at the Brown ruling, it also makes the Recently, the university began fully funding a case that New School graduate assistants are dif- small number of Ph.D. students, 36, and Mr. Van ferent than those at most other universities. For Zandt says his goal is to increase that support, example, students at the New School can earn their doctorates without ever being a teaching or research assistant, showing that those duties are disconnected from their educational experience. A Quick Look at Past Rulings If the board does rule in favor of the New School, it doesn’t mean the debate is During the last 45 years, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled over. several times on the issue of whether graduate assistants, who receive Daniel V. Johns, a higher-education a stipend and other benefits for teaching or conducting research, are in labor lawyer with Ballard Spahr, calls fact employees of a university. Over that time, the board has gone back and forth on this question. Here are a few of the board’s key rulings: the labor board’s views on how graduate assistants fit into universities “ping- 1972: In a case involving Adel- be ‘predominately students,’ they pong jurisprudence,” the result of its phi University, the board held that cannot be statutory employees.” members’ being politically appointed by graduate assistants were primarily the president. students and should be excluded 2004: In a case involving Brown Graduate students at private colleges from a bargaining unit of regular University, a divided board ruled “didn’t have the right to organize under faculty. that extending collective bargain- the pre-Clinton board,” he says. “They did ing to the students would “have 1974: The board went further in a deleterious impact on over- under a Clinton board. That goes back the a case brought by research as- all educational decisions by the other way under a Bush board. Now it may sistants in Stanford University’s Brown faculty and administration.” go back the other way under an Obama physics department. It found that The majority wrote that stipends board. There’s no reason to believe that the students were not employees amount to “financial aid.” might be any different should the White as defined by the National La- House go Republican.” bor Relations Act. The stipends 2015: In October, the labor board the students received, the board Even so, a labor-board win for the New decided it would review a case School students would probably provide found, were “not based on the brought about by New School skill or function of the particular graduate assistants, a move that immediate collective-bargaining power individual or the nature of the re- sets the stage for overturning the to the students. And even if the political search performed” and were not Brown ruling. When the board de- wind changes, says Mr. Picek, the New wages. cided to review a case involving School union organizer, contracts often New York University, in 2012, the last several years. 2000: Reversing precedent, the institution decided it would volun- What’s more, while the ability to form board found that most New York tarily recognize a graduate-student University graduate assistants collective-bargaining unit, side- a union is important, to New School stu- were, in fact, employees under the stepping a labor-board ruling. No dents like Zoe Carey it’s really about labor act. The board wrote that it such deal is expected in the New changing the campus culture to prioritize rejected the contention that “be- School case. graduate-student needs. The challenges cause the graduate assistants may — Vimal Patel they face, says Ms. Carey, a Ph.D. student in sociology, show a larger problem with higher education. “There’s really no alternative to either accruing exorbitant stu- though he said it was too soon to offer specifics. dent loans or working while you’re also studying,” When asked to make the case that graduate as- she says. “We’re no longer exclusively students. sistants aren’t employees, Mr. Van Zandt said, “It’s We’re students and workers.”

Originally published on November 23, 2015

6 union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2016 REDUX PICTURES In a case involving Columbia U., the National Labor Relations Board ruled on Tuesday that graduate-employee unions are legal at private colleges. Experts predict a surge in organizing similar to what has taken place among adjuncts. Above: Low Plaza on Columbia’s main campus, in New York. Ruling Pushes Door to Grad-Student Unions ‘Wide Open’

By PETER SCHMIDT any more private universities can expect to see their graduate employees move to form unions in the wake of Tuesday’s Na- tional Labor Relations Board decision on such an effort at Co- lumbia University. The federal labor board’s 3-to-1 ruling resoundingly over- Mturned a 2004 decision involving Brown University. In the Brown ruling, the board asserted that graduate employees should not be allowed to form unions because their doing so would intrude into the educational process. In Tuesday’s decision, the majority held that such a belief “is unsupported by legal authority, by empirical evidence, or by the board’s actual experience.”

o c t ob e r 2016 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s 7 It not only rejected the Brown precedent, but also ers regional office that serves New York City, says overturned a 1974 ruling that had declared re- she is hopeful that the decision will be made in search assistants at Stanford University ineligible time for union elections to be held there this fall. to unionize based on a belief that such research is The NLRB heard a case involving the unioniza- part of the educational process. tion of graduate students at the New School at the The board’s decision in the Columbia case says same time it was hearing the Columbia case, wrap- graduate students employed by a private university ping the two together procedurally. Although the are as eligible as any other type of worker to form decision issued Tuesday covered only Columbia, collective-bargaining units under the National La- a board ruling on the New School is expected soon. bor Relations Act. “We have been expecting this and gearing up for The decision leaves the doors to unionization this,” says Zoe Carey, a doctoral student in sociol- “wide open” for graduate employees and “pretty ogy involved in the New School organizing effort. much sweeps almost anyone who is a graduate stu- “We really look forward to starting the semester dent providing some service for stipend into the off strong, with a vote.” mix,” says Daniel V. Johns, a lawyer who advises James Mitchell, a doctoral student in physics colleges in labor talks as director of the higher-ed- who is helping organize a UAW affiliate at Har- ucation practice of Ballard Spahr LLP. vard University, similarly said in a written state- Private universities can expect to see a wave of ment, “We spent the last year organizing our union union efforts by grad students, similar to the re- in anticipation of this moment.” cent surge in organizing among adjunct instruc- Cornell Graduate Students United, which is tors, says William A. Herbert, executive director seeking to form a union affiliated with the Amer- ican Federation of Teachers, last spring reached an agreement with administrators there that called Appeals to graduate for a “fair and expeditious” union election in the event of an NLRB ruling in favor of the Columbia students to be content graduate students. “We see us winning our election with the academic whenever that takes place,” says Michaela Brangan, a doctoral student in English who is the Cornell rewards of their work organization’s administrative li- aison. She says Tuesday’s decision hold less sway in an era “helps us with organizing, and it helps us take down the university’s official position that we are when tenure-track jobs students who are training for ac- ademia, rather than workers who are dwindling, says a are keeping this university’s mission alive.” Heather Conroy, who is helping lawyer who represents oversee efforts to unionize graduate students at Duke, Northwest- unions at colleges. ern, and Saint Louis Universities as an executive vice president of the Service Employees Interna- tional Union, says she expects the of the National Center for the Study of Collective efforts to organize graduate-student unions to be Bargaining in Higher Education and the Profes- concentrated at large research institutions. sions. Aaron Nisenson, senior counsel of the Ameri- can Association of University Professors, says the VOTES MAY COME SOON AAUP has “staff who have been devoted to the issue and have been planning for graduate students The federal board left to a regional director the to organize for some time.” He predicts that most task of determining how long graduate students of the new organizing efforts will take place in need to have worked at Columbia in order to be states that already have a large amount of union eligible to vote in a union election. Julie Kushner, representation and, especially, in states where who had overseen the Columbia students’ union- unions already represent faculty members or grad- ization drive as director of the United Auto Work- uate students at public universities.

8 union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2016 In a 2011 decision involving nurses seeking to grams and freedoms, mentoring, and research at unionize at an Alabama health-care facility, the Harvard.” NLRB gave the green light to the organization of Carl J. Levine, who represents unions at colleges collective-bargaining units that represent small as a lawyer at Levy Ratner, argues that appeals to segments of a work force, rather than being “wall- graduate students to be content with the academ- to-wall,” so long as they share common interest. As ic rewards of their work hold much less sway in an a result of that precedent, cited in Tuesday’s ruling, era in which a large share of college faculty mem- graduate students might seek to organize “depart- bers are employed on a contingent basis. The idea ment by department or college by college within that such students will eventually get tenure-track the university setting,” says Mr. Johns, of Ballard jobs “is just not reality anymore,” he says, and Spahr. students “want to make a living wage and have health-care benefits.” ADMINISTRATORS PUSH BACK The mere possibility of an NLRB ruling in favor of the Columbia graduate students may have Columbia University issued a statement Tuesday had a positive impact on such students’ working that said it is reviewing the NLRB ruling, but “dis- conditions at some colleges. Columbia, Brown agrees with this outcome because we believe the University, and the University of Chicago have all academic relationship students have with faculty announced increases in graduate student stipends members and departments as part of their studies is over the past year, and it is common for employers not the same as between employer and employee.” to take such steps to discourage unionization. The American Council on Education used much stronger language, issuing a statement in which LEARNING FROM OTHERS Peter McDonough, its general counsel, said the ruling “represents a sweeping expansion of federal Mr. Herbert, from the center on the study of col- authority.” lective bargaining, says the nation’s universities “This misguided decision turns all students into currently have 30 collective-bargaining units for potential employees who could be organized, even graduate students, representing a total of 65,000 undergraduate students in Federal Work-Study graduate assistants and research assistants. Near- positions.” he said. “Such a development would de- ly all are at public institutions, where state labor crease opportunities for campus jobs that help stu- laws govern such unions. dents, particularly those from low- and middle-in- “Private-sector universities are going to look to come families, finance their education and drive the experiences of public-sector universities,” he up administrative costs.” says. Mr. Johns says he expects the debate over grad- Matilda Stubbs, a doctoral student at North- uate-student unions to shift from “whether you western University who is helping to organize a have a legal right, to whether it is a bad idea.” Har- graduate-employee union affiliated with the SEIU, vard University responded to the Columbia ruling says she has been swapping notes with organiz- with a written statement that said, “We continue ers at another private institution, the University to believe that the relationship between students of Chicago. “I think we are going to be combining and the university is primarily about education, best practices, sharing information across cam- and that unionization will disrupt academic pro- puses on how to move forward,” she says.

Originally published on August 24, 2016

o c t ob e r 2016 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s 9 RYAN FLYNN, NEW HAVEN REGISTER VIA AP IMAGES Changing realities in higher education and the broad scope of a decision this week by the National Labor Relations Board are feeding a growing appetite among graduate students to fight for better working conditions. Above, graduate students seeking to form a union at Yale U. marched last fall. A New Era for Grad-Student Organizing

By VIMAL PATEL

he air around graduate-student activ- ployees with the right to unionize. Four years later, ism feels different this time. a George W. Bush-era board reversed that right. In a general sense, Tuesday’s sweep- The academic ground, however, has shifted ing decision by the National Labor Rela- since that 2000 ruling, by a board largely appoint- tions Board sets the clock back to 2000. ed by President Bill Clinton. Universities have TThat year, the labor board had also declared that become more corporatized, activists and labor graduate assistants at private colleges were em- observers say, and doctoral students increasingly

10 union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2016 see their teaching as work. Diminishing academic are now to view themselves as students training job prospects mean many graduate students don’t to be professors. With tenure-track jobs drying want to, or won’t be able to, become professors, up in many fields and doctoral students finding which makes the argument that teaching is part of employment outside academe, that view of their their training less compelling. training has grown less persuasive, Mr. Leiter- The changing realities of the modern re- mann says. search university and the broad scope of Tues- “Being an employee is being an employee,” he day’s ruling feed what has been a growing appe- says. “It’s not about training to be a professor. It’s tite among graduate students to fight for better about doing work for tuition credit and pay. I don’t working conditions at both private and public know if that’s how people viewed that relationship colleges, where dozens of graduate unions exist even five years ago, but that’s changing.” under state laws. In its ruling Tuesday, the labor board affirmed, Colleges have opposed the ruling on the ground unequivocally, that graduate assistants can have that it would harm mentor-mentee relationships, both an academic and an economic relationship among other reasons, but it remains to be seen with their university. “A graduate student,” the rul- whether they will challenge the right of gradu- ing states, “may be both a student and an employ- ate assistants to form unions like they did the last ee; a university may be both the student’s educator time, or accept the new legal landscape and turn and employer.” their attention to winning union elections instead. The broad scope of the labor board’s definition “At some point, the tide turns,” says Julie Kush- about who constitutes an employee will give more ner, a United Auto Workers director who helped graduate students the chance to be part of collec- organize the New York University graduate as- tive-bargaining units, says Bennett Carpenter, a sistants whose petition led to the 2000 ruling. “It fourth-year doctoral student in literature at Duke happened at NYU, which made a decision that it University and a graduate-union organizer there. was no longer in their interest to continue to fight The labor board included teaching assistants and the union.” also research assistants with external grants, so She was referring to the fact that the NYU ad- Duke graduate activists envision all 2,500 or so of ministration, in 2013, voluntarily recognized the the university’s Ph.D. students becoming part of UAW-affiliated graduate union after several years the bargaining unit. of bitter political fights that galvanized the city. “In my mind,” Mr. Carpenter says, “all Ph.D. stu- In exchange, the union withdrew a case pending dents who are performing labor in exchange for before the labor board. NYU is the only graduate union at a private college. That may change soon. Graduate students at several campuses this week an- “Being an employee nounced organizing drives. While graduate unionization at private colleges has been dominated by conversations is being an employee. about working conditions at elite institutions like NYU, Columbia University, It’s not about training and Yale University, organizing is also planned at places like St. Louis Univer- sity, Syracuse University, and the Uni- to be a professor. It’s versity of Rochester. about doing work for A CHANGING VIEW OF TRAINING At Syracuse, like at many campuses, tuition credit and pay.” graduate students discussed forming a union last year after the university announced it would transition students from an employee health insurance plan to a stu- compensation, at the end of the day, regardless of dent plan without seeking their input. While the whether they are partially grant-funded, are work- university reversed course, the episode clarified for ers.” students the precariousness of their relationship The same sweep of the ruling that Mr. Carpen- with the university, says Samuel Leitermann, a ter welcomed, however, is forcing colleges’ hand to master’s student in mathematics education at Syr- take the decision to court, says Joseph Ambash, a acuse. lawyer with Fisher & Phillips who filed a brief be- Sixteen years ago, Mr. Leitermann says, grad- fore the labor board on behalf of elite private col- uate assistants were far more likely than they leges opposed to graduate unions.

o c t ob e r 2016 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s 11 He wonders, for example, how colleges are sup- The struggles of contingent faculty members are posed to separate the work research assistants do linked with those of graduate assistants, Mr. Col- for their dissertation — an educational pursuit — lins says. Both groups feel the brunt of colleges’ and work that they do as labor. increased reliance on cheap labor to teach under- “Because this decision takes a hammer and ba- graduates, and both face the same battles over sically smashes decades and decades of case law,” working conditions, including uncertainty over Mr. Ambash says, “I’m sure there will be appeals health insurance. from Columbia or another institution. This is go- Activists say the labor board’s ruling has created ing to go to court.” renewed hope for graduate students everywhere, at both public and private colleges. It gives grad- MORE INTEREST IN COLLECTIVE BARGAINING uate-union movements at public colleges moral authority and momentum, says Alex Howe, a doc- Labor relations on campuses over the past two toral student in philosophy at the University of decades have simultaneously deteriorated and at- Missouri, where graduate assistants voted to form tracted more attention, increasing the appetite for a union and are now suing the Missouri system for collective-bargaining, says Sean Collins, an orga- union recognition. nizer for Service Employees International Union “There have been a lot of myths perpetuated Local 200 United, which is working with graduate that graduate unions would damage academic students at Rochester and Syracuse. relationships, mentor-mentee relationships, aca- “The number of adjuncts at colleges and univer- demic freedom,” Mr. Howe says. “They’re all com- sities has grown dramatically,” Mr. Collins says. pletely baseless, but they have dominated the dis- “Colleges and universities have embraced a more cussion. The NLRB decision just thoroughly evis- corporate model instead of historically how they’ve cerates those myths, and that in itself is a great been run, with a lot more faculty input.” contribution for everybody.”

Originally published on August 26, 2016

12 union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2016 MARK ABRAMSON FOR THE CHRONICLE The National Labor Relations Board’s ruling on graduate-student unionization at Columbia U. represents a recognition of the shifting nature of the work research assistants do, says Olga Brudastova, a graduate student in civil engineering there. “The work they produce is also covered by intellectual-property law and belongs to Columbia,” she says. For Research Assistants, NLRB Decision Marks a Big Win

By VIMAL PATEL he activities Scott Barish performs as a doctoral research assistant align with the goals of the federal agencies that sponsor his research and directly benefit his faculty adviser and Duke University. In short, Mr. Barish argues, he is providing a service in exchange for pay and, therefore, he is an employee. TLast month, 42 years after deciding otherwise, the federal panel that over- sees labor relations agreed. In a ruling involving Columbia University, the full National Labor Relations Board extended the right to collectively bargain not only to teaching assistants at private colleges but also, for the first time, to re-

o c t ob e r 2016 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s 13 search assistants on externally funded grants, like educational requirements such as work on a dis- Mr. Barish. Graduate unionization at public col- sertation. The process would be burdensome, leges is governed by state laws. messy, and result in years of litigation, critics say. Activists cheered the new rights for teaching as- “By sweeping all research assistants into the em- sistants, which they had been denied since 2004, brace of this ruling,” says Joseph W. Ambash, a under a ruling involving Brown University. But lawyer with Fisher Phillips who successfully ar- as important, union advocates say, is the reversal gued the 2004 Brown case, “the intrusion into of an obscure 1974 decision involving a bid by 83 higher education is unfathomable.” research assistants in Stanford University’s phys- Some faculty members at public colleges have ics department to form a union to “improve wages done more than just fathom it, however. They’ve and working conditions.” In that case, the board learned to embrace the unionization of research held that the research conducted by the graduate assistants, despite the occasional headache and assistants was a requirement of their programs transitional growing pains. At the University and “a part of the learning process.” In other of Massachusetts at Amherst, which has had words, it was education, not employment. unionized research assistants for 25 years, for Graduate students make a living while in their example, faculty members report none of the programs usually by serving as a teaching assis- major concerns often raised by graduate-union tant, in which they work as instructors or assis- critics. tants in undergraduate courses, or, in the sciences, At first, faculty members found it shocking when as research assistants, in which they help their fac- they learned they would have to provide guaran- ulty advisers with research and work on their dis- teed raises to their research assistants, says Eliz- sertations. The students are typically given a sti- abeth A. Connor, head of the biology department. pend for living expenses. Colleges call it financial The contract the union bargained for created aid. Students often call it pay. bookkeeping and financial challenges by mandat- About 30 graduate student unions exist at pub- ing stipend increases, she says, which complicated lic colleges, according to William A. Herbert, exec- the process of divvying up federal grants. utive director of the National Center for the Study “Now that we’re all aware of the cyclical nature of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and of that,” Ms. Connor says, “it’s not as stressful as it the Professions. Several have unionized research was those first few years. It took a little time get- assistants, including the Universities of Connecti- ting used to, but we’ve certainly been at equilibri- cut, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington. um for a number of years.” Unionized teaching assistants are more common, At the University of Washington, which has in part because the employment relationship is 4,500 teaching and research assistants, adminis- more visible: A graduate assistant teaching a class, trators say they don’t get into the weeds of deter- for example, is filling a business need of a univer- mining what counts as work. They set a limit on sity in a way that is often clearer than the work of the hours a research assistant can work — 220 per a research assistant who is making progress on a quarter, or roughly 20 hours a week — and then dissertation by doing work with an adviser on a leave the professor and student to work out the de- federal grant. tails. It’s a system that has worked with no major The recent Columbia ruling deemed the conclu- problems, says Peter Denis, Washington’s assistant sion of the 1974 board — that research assistants vice president for labor relations. are “primarily students” — irrelevant. Instead, the The question of what’s personal research and board applied the same “common-law test of em- what is research for the university can be compli- ployment” that it did to teaching assistants on the cated, but it’s a question administrators largely question of research assistants: Does the employ- sidestep, Mr. Denis says. “What we’ve tried to do er control the work, and is the work performed in as an institution over the years is be mature about exchange for compensation? Yes on both, it con- this and say: This is our expectation. If there’s a cluded. reason you can’t meet that expectation, we want “Most of the research assistants I talk to feel the to know about it and we’ll address it on a case-by- nebulousness of what our status is,” says Mr. Bar- case basis.” ish, a fifth-year student in the biology department. “We acknowledge the reality that we are simulta- A CHANGING RELATIONSHIP neously learning and engaged in that process of education while also doing work and labor. This The labor board’s recent decision represents a ruling puts legal concrete behind that.” recognition of the shifting nature of the work research assistants do, says Olga Brudastova, a grad- AT AN EQUILIBRIUM uate assistant in the civil engineering department of Columbia University. A dissertation in the sci- Opponents of graduate unionization say they ences or engineering is often a series of three or worry about how colleges can separate labor from more papers written on topics that help the stu-

14 union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2016 dent’s research adviser earn more grant money. tants, say students in the sciences are just as much “The work they produce is also covered by intellec- in need of support as humanities students. In the tual-property law and belongs to Columbia,” Ms. sciences, stipends tend to be higher because of ac- Brudastova says. cess to federal grants, but being overworked and Mr. Barish, from Duke, says the work he per- not having enough time off tend to be more preva- forms studying nervous-system development in lent concerns. fruit flies — which includes being first author for David Hoagland, head of the polymer science two papers in which his adviser is also listed as a and engineering department at UMass Amherst, co-author — directly helps his adviser, an assistant says the graduate union there has helped change professor, make the case for tenure and win re- the culture around labor relations in his depart- search grants. ment, which has only research assistants. Grad- A portion of those research grants is taken by uate students are working less than they used to. Duke for overhead costs, meaning his work, he Professors no longer call their advisees on nights says, “contributes to sustaining the university.” and weekends. And students report fewer prob- The labor board’s ruling on research assistants lems with delayed paychecks. could be a double-edged sword for union activists. Even so, Mr. Hoagland is rueful about the Research assistants in the sciences tend to be less change in the relationship with his research assis- supportive of unions than teaching assistants in tants. It’s more “employer-employee than advis- the humanities, and administrators sometimes en- er-mentee” now, as opposed to 30 years ago. Mr. courage the inclusion of research assistants in pro- Hoagland, however, does not fault graduate stu- posed bargaining units with the belief that they’ll dents for wanting to collectively bargain. help defeat union elections. “The academy brought this on itself by not being But activists, including at Duke, where they are as sensitive to the needs of graduate students as it hoping to create a bargaining unit consisting of might have been,” Mr. Hoagland says. “You have to all of the university’s teaching and research assis- suffer the consequences of your policies.”

Originally published on September 5, 2016

o c t ob e r 2016 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s 15 NYU’s Graduate Union: Success Story or Cautionary Tale?

By VIMAL PATEL

udging by their unequal financial support, down Jersey City home for $300 a month, a bar- it’s hard to believe that Sudhir Mahadevan gain even after factoring in the refrigerator that and Jacob Denz were both Ph.D. students in often didn’t work. The university did not pay for the humanities at the same university. Mr. Mahadevan’s health insurance, and he had to J Mr. Mahadevan received a stipend of about turn down research opportunities because he had $12,000 at the start of his cinema-studies pro- no money to travel. gram in 1999. To get by, he rented a room in a run- Mr. Denz, on the other hand, is among the best-

MICHAEL ALEXANDER GOULD-WARTOFSKY

Graduate-student workers at New York U. and their allies protest for a fair contract in November 2014.

16 union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2016 paid humanities Ph.D. students anywhere. In the demic freedom, such as who would teach a course, sixth year of his German program, he received a member of the union or someone outside the bar- about $37,000 last year from NYU — a stipend of gaining unit. about $25,000 and the rest for teaching a pair of classes to undergraduates in an unusual system PUBLIC-PRIVATE DIVIDE where teaching duties are disconnected from fel- lowship packages and graduate students receive NYU has a storied place in the graduate-student extra money at the adjunct rate for teaching. Mr. organizing movement. In a landmark 2000 case, Denz’s compensation allows him to focus squarely a Clinton-era labor board ruled NYU graduate as- on his studies and research, without the stress of sistants were, in fact, employees under the Nation- worrying about money. The university pays for his al Labor Relations Act, rejecting — as the labor health insurance. board did again on Tuesday — the contention that The drastic improvement in graduate-student “because the graduate assistants may be ‘predomi- working conditions and pay, labor activists say, is nantly students,’ they cannot be statutory employ- “the union difference.” The years between Mr. Ma- ees.” The next year, the graduate union became the hadevan’s time in the program and now have seen first, and only to this date, graduate collective-bar- the rise and fall and rise again of NYU’s United gaining unit at a private college. Graduate assis- Auto Workers-affiliated graduate union, the only tants at public colleges are subject to their states’ example of a graduate collective-bargaining unit labor laws. recognized by a private college. The first contract won major increases for The NYU union, which university administra- NYU’s grad students, including setting the floor tors voluntarily recognized in 2013, was cited as for stipends at $15,000 a year. With $1,000 in- both a success story and cautionary tale in argu- creases per year over the life of the four-year con- ments over whether graduate students at private tract, Mr. Mahadevan finished his doctoral pro- colleges should have the right to form unions. On gram in 2005 with a stipend of $19,000. “That Tuesday the National Labor Relations Board de- was an unthinkable amount when I started my cided that graduate students are employees, over- program,” says Mr. Mahadevan, who is now an as- turning a 2004 ruling involving Brown University sociate professor of film studies at the University and paving the way for graduate students at pri- of Washington. vate colleges across the United States to form their That year — a year after a George W. Bush-era own collective-bargaining units. The board major- labor board effectively struck down graduate assis- ity cited NYU as an example of a successful bar- tants’ right to unionize, in the Brown case — NYU gaining relationship. withdrew union recognition. Years of intensive or- Columbia University, the New School, and Har- ganizing ensued. vard University might hold union elections soon, In 2013, as the labor board appeared poised to a United Auto Workers official says, and several restore the rights of graduate students to union- other institutions are expected to follow. As pri- ize in a new case involving NYU, administrators vate colleges brace for unionization fights, gradu- agreed to voluntarily recognize the union. As part ate-student activists and union opponents paint of the agreement, the union withdrew its case wildly different portraits about what NYU’s expe- from the labor board, leaving the national question rience means for graduate collective bargaining at to be decided by the board on another day. private colleges. That day turned out to be Tuesday. In the Supporters tout the remarkable increases in months before, a number of elite private colleges financial support graduate students now enjoy, and powerful higher-education groups — the won through nearly two decades of bitter politi- American Council on Education, the Association cal fights, a pair of union contracts, and, when the of American Universities, and the National Asso- union wasn’t officially recognized, intense organiz- ciation of Independent Colleges and Universities ing efforts. While union opponents say the increas- — pointed to NYU as Exhibit A for why the labor es might have resulted from NYU trying to com- board should let the Brown ruling stand. pete with its peers, no one denies the role of collec- A brief filed on behalf of the Ivies, Stanford Uni- tive bargaining in the higher pay. versity, and the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- Many of the nation’s top private colleges and nology argues that NYU’s experience “demon- groups like the American Council on Education, strates the burdensome and disruptive effect such meanwhile, portray NYU’s experience as a warn- bargaining has on graduate education.” Universi- ing about why graduate unions at private colleges ties will be tied up in lengthy arbitration disputes, are a bad idea: They taint the relationship between the brief continues, and both arbitration and col- faculty members and their doctoral students by lective bargaining “have the potential to transform introducing a third party into the mix. The NYU the collaborative model of graduate education to union, its opponents also say, has tied up the uni- one of conflict and tension.” A brief filed by ACE versity in arbitration over issues that impede aca- and other higher-education groups states that

o c t ob e r 2016 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s 17 graduate collective bargaining at private colleges Further, the ruling specifically mentions the lat- would “intrude upon academic freedom and the est NYU contract, which covers 2014 to 2020, in relationship between university professors and which a “management and academic rights” clause their students, with implications that are both ex- preserves the university’s right to “exercise sole au- tensive and far reaching.” thority on all decisions involving academic mat- A degree, the brief states, is based on academ- ters,” including how material is taught and who ic, not labor, standards, and overturning Brown does the teaching. would “unsettle fundamental relationships in The debate over graduate unions at private higher education” by changing the way universi- colleges isn’t finished, but it’s hard to argue that ties handle financial aid, curriculum, and related collective bargaining hasn’t improved the lives matters. of students. Mr. Denz, the student who received But several NYU faculty members, including $37,000 last year, has pulled off a rare gradu- some who have previously opposed a graduate ate-school feat: He has started to pay down his union, say concerns about a breakdown in facul- undergraduate student loans while still in his pro- ty-graduate student relations never materialized. gram. Senior NYU administrators did not respond to re- “I chose to go to NYU in large part because it quests for comment for this article. was attractive financially,” he says. “Everything In its ruling, the labor board stated the Brown about NYU’s experience shows how a union adds board “failed to demonstrate that collective bar- to universities.” gaining between a university and its employed Mr. Denz and others point to additional im- graduate students cannot coexist successfully with provements the union won in the latest contract, student-teacher relationships, with the education- including a guarantee that if a class that a worker al process, and with the traditional goals of higher is scheduled to teach is canceled, NYU must ap- education.” point the student to a comparable position. This, Mr. Denz says, gives students peace of mind and ALARM OVER GRIEVANCES makes budgeting easier, especially during the summer. To support their case that unions are burden- The lessons Mr. Mahadevan, the grad student some, opponents cited a series of grievances NYU who started his doctoral program in 1999, learned had to confront during the first contract that chal- organizing at NYU have stuck with him. He men- lenged who would teach a course — a member of tors Ph.D. students of his own now at the Univer- the collective-bargaining unit or someone outside sity of Washington. His students don’t help him it. The disputes worried a faculty body, the Fac- move books or blanch asparagus for parties, roles ulty Advisory Committee on Academic Priorities, he says he and his colleagues performed for profes- enough to recommend in 2005 that recognition of sors as NYU graduate students. the union should be discontinued. Mr. Mahadevan sits down with each of his The committee, according to the recommenda- Ph.D. teaching assistants at the start of each tion, feared that the grievances “threatened to im- quarter and outlines their relationship. A sheet of pede the academic decision-making authority of paper specifies how many hours they’ll be working the faculty over such issues as: the staffing of the per week — no more than 20 — and how that time undergraduate curriculum; the appropriate mea- will be divided between teaching, grading papers, sures of academic progress of students; the opti- and preparing for class. He and the graduate as- mal design of support packages for graduate stu- sistant both sign the paper. This helps reduce a dents; and the conditions and terms of fellowships common complaint of graduate students every- (as opposed to graduate assistantships).” where: They work far more in reality than it says The labor board’s ruling on Tuesday weighed in on paper. on the recourse for colleges that believe bargaining Mr. Mahadevan is not alone among colleagues threatens academic freedom, noting that Congress in providing that level of clarity to his doctoral stu- has limited bargaining to wages, hours, and other dents. It’s now an expectation. University of Wash- “terms and conditions” of employment. ington graduate assistants are unionized.

Originally published on August 24, 2016

18 union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2016 What It Means When Harvard Tells Its Faculty How to Talk About Graduate-Student Unions

By VIMAL PATEL

rofessors and graduate students must navigate all kinds of tricky topics in their relationships. Dissertation deadlines, Ph.D. career paths, and the occasional lapse in research ethics are just a few examples. Now add to that list graduate-student unionization. POr at least that’s what Harvard administrators think. This month the university published a two-page “guide for discussion” to help faculty members talk with graduate students about unionizing. Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences created the discussion guide after field- ing inquiries from faculty members about a push by Harvard graduate students to establish ties with the United Auto Workers union. The document lists 15 dos and don’ts, many of which seem like common sense: Don’t spy on union meetings. Don’t threaten students for supporting a union. Don’t interrogate students about union activity. Yet the fact that Harvard felt the need to write such a guide is a sign of how much the unionization of graduate students is a growing issue, even though it exists at only one private university. And the guidelines do point to the tough spot faculty mem- “We are asking bers can be in when stuck between administrators for a voice, and and students in this debate. Some professors have it sounds like we viewed certain sugges- tions with skepticism: are being heard.” Do explain the down- side of unionization, for example, and do correct misleading union statements. They note that there’s no “do” that says, Do explain the upside of unionization, and that the guide assumes that all faculty members are opposed to graduate-student unions. “We have a university dedicated to the free exchange of ideas,” says Alison Frank Johnson, director of graduate studies in Harvard’s history department.

o c t ob e r 2016 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s 19 “We need to be particularly careful to make sure is meant to help facilitate a better conversation that the expression of all different kinds of ideas about the issues. A letter accompanying the guide, are welcome around a topic that has been polariz- obtained by The Harvard Crimson, the student ing at other institutions.” newspaper, from Xiao-Li Meng, dean of the Grad- Others say faculty members shouldn’t play a role uate School of Arts and Sciences, says “there must in the collective-bargaining debate at all. “Faculty be a full and open conversation on unionization” speech is disproportionately powerful — in our ad- that explains “the facts on the generous financial aid, tuition, stipend, housing, health-care benefits, and other support and services that are already provided to graduate stu- “We need to be dents.” Some graduate students have praised the guidelines as a step forward by admin- particularly careful to istrators. “We are glad they are talking about open discussions between students make sure that the and faculty because that is what we are asking for,” John M. Nicoludis, a graduate student in the chemistry department, told expression of all the Crimson. “We are asking for a voice, and it sounds like we are being heard.” different kinds of The guide was sent out as graduate students are trying to form unions to improve pay and working conditions at several elite ideas are welcome private universities, including Columbia, Cornell, and Yale Universities and the Uni- around a topic that versity of Chicago. A 2004 ruling by the National Labor Relations Board concerning a case at has been polarizing Brown University states that graduate assistants, who receive a stipend and other at other institutions.” benefits for teaching and conducting research, do not have a right to unionize at private universities and are not covered by the National Labor Relations Act because vising, in our teaching, in our supervision of grad- their relationship with the university is primarily uate students,” says Kirsten A. Weld, an assistant academic. professor of history at Harvard. “That’s why we as But a pair of cases pending before the labor faculty members need to observe a policy of neu- board, involving Columbia University and the New trality.” School, have infused pro-union activists on campuses with hope that the Brown ruling will be re- FACULTY AS MANAGEMENT? considered. Moreover, the 2004 ruling doesn’t prohibit pri- To one outside observer, the guide is about en- vate universities from voluntarily recognizing a listing the faculty in the university’s effort to defeat graduate-student union, and students are look- unionization. Harvard, writes Corey Robin, a po- ing to the example of New York University, where litical-science professor at Brooklyn College of the graduate students voted overwhelmingly in 2013 City University of New York, is “treating the facul- to form a bargaining unit after the university, ty as if they are management, as if they are the en- worn down by years of organizing efforts, agreed forcers of the administration’s policies. In the same to remain neutral in a vote. NYU is the only pri- way that the moguls of General Motors or Hyatt or vate university to recognize a graduate-student Amazon instruct their front-line managers in how union. to talk to workers — often using the same kind of Despite the new guidelines, don’t expect Har- boilerplate that Harvard is using here — so is Har- vard to be the second. While the administration vard training its managers in how to talk to the says it hopes to start a broader conversation, it re- workers there.” mains steadfast in opposing a graduate-student Harvard administrators, however, say the guide union.

Originally published on October 21, 2015

20 union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2016 OPINION

NICOLE BENGIVENO, THE NEW YORK TIMES, REDUX Grad students who work at Columbia U. will be allowed to unionize. NLRB’s Graduate-Assistant Ruling: Bad News for Administrators and Students

By JOSEPH W. AMBASH

he National Labor Relations Board’s re- For decades, the NLRB held that students who cent decision regarding graduate students perform services related to their educational pro- at Columbia University has been lauded grams have a primarily educational, not economic, by labor unions and graduate assistants at relationship with their institutions. Then, in 2000, private institutions as a clear endorsement the Democratic-dominated board ruled that cer- Tof their perception of themselves as workers, not stu- tain graduate assistants at New York University dents. Academic administrators, however, have lit- were employees within the meaning of the Nation- tle to applaud about the board’s decision, which will al Labor Relations Act. have a profound and unfortunate effect on private Four years later, the Republican-dominated higher education as we know it. board reversed the NYU decision in a case in-

o c t ob e r 2016 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s 21 volving Brown University, holding that because during strikes. The board ignored the Supreme student assistants had a primarily educational re- Court’s 1980 recognition in NLRB v. Yeshiva Uni- lationship with their institutions, they were not versity that “the principles developed for use in the considered employees within the meaning of the industrial setting cannot be ‘imposed blindly on federal law. the academic world.’ “ The Columbia decision, issued on August 23 n The scope of bargaining between students and by a vote of 3 to 1 by the Democratic-dominated universities remains undefined. Will “workload” board, changed the landscape of higher educa- issues such as how many papers teaching assis- tion once again by broadly ruling that any student tants have to grade in a course, or how many sec- assistant at any private college who qualifies as a tions they have to teach, be subject to bargaining? “common-law employee” is covered by the NLRA. Will uniform financial aid for graduate students, The standard for determining common-law status regardless of their activities in any given semes- is that the student must simply provide services ter, now be subject to bargaining as wages because for the institution, under its control, for compen- they serve as assistants in some semesters? sation. n The NLRB simply said that it would decide The sweep of that decision is breathtaking, en- those and related questions in unfair-labor-prac- compassing undergraduates, master’s students, tice proceedings “on a case-by-case basis,” a pro- and Ph.D. candidates. And it foreshadows even cess that will take years — long after the students greater intrusion involved in the dis- into the academic pute will have left setting, because its their institutions. language is broad n The board re- enough to cover It won’t be long jected the argument virtually any stu- that students who dent activity for before scholarship are awarded teach- which the student ing and research as- receives a stipend sistantships as part or honorarium and athletes, student of their degree re- provides “services” quirements should to the institution, orchestras, and not be treated as under its control. employees. Many It will not be long institutions provide before scholarship other student extensive financial athletes, orches- aid to graduate stu- tras that receive sti- groups claim the dents in the form of pends for perform- stipends, tuition re- ing at university mission, and health concerts, and oth- right to organize. insurance, among er student groups other benefits. Ig- claim the right to noring the essential organize because they are “common-law employ- fact that serving an assistantship is typically a cur- ees” under the board’s blanket definition. ricular requirement, the NLRB held that because Last year the NLRB declined to assert jurisdic- the stipends specify that the student must period- tion in a case brought by football players at North- ically serve an assistantship to retain the stipend, western University, without deciding if they were the stipend is a “wage,” and the student is therefore employees. It left the door open for consideration a “common-law employee.” of the status of student-athletes (and others) in fu- This holding applies, for example, to research ture cases. Now the Columbia case has opened the assistants whose very purpose in obtaining the door much wider. doctorate is to spend time in the lab performing This decision poses a clear threat to the aca- research leading to an original dissertation. The demic freedom of private institutions because it consequence is that institutions whose research will force them to engage in bargaining about core assistants become unionized will have to bar- academic decisions that have no legitimate place gain about such issues as how many hours stu- at the bargaining table. It will transform union- dents spend doing research, whether they should ized institutions into NLRB-regulated workplaces receive overtime, what projects they can be as- based on guidelines forged on the factory floor, not signed to, and whether their course of research in the academy. A few examples will illustrate the can be modified. threat: No NLRB decision has ever required institu- n Unionized students will be entitled to strike, tions to bargain about the essence of students’ to be locked out, and to be permanently replaced curriculum. The result, for the first time in histo-

22 union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2016 ry, will be that doctoral candidates at unionized of common-sense rules was unlawful and must be institutions whose programs principally involve rescinded because the student was acting in her research (typically in the hard sciences) will now capacity as a teaching or research assistant while have to join a union or pay an agency fee in order complaining about a faculty member or a work-re- to get a Ph.D. lated policy at the institution. As the dissent pointed out, the rules of the These concerns identify real-life issues that NLRB will now be applicable to all colleges that college administrators must be prepared to con- have student assistants, regardless of whether they front. And they must be prepared to confront are unionized. This means that the NLRB can them quickly and decisively. Once a union orga- strike down standard campus rules and policies on nizing drive starts, the administration has only a such subjects as civility and respect, because the few days to decide its position and respond to the board has repeatedly held that such rules violate NLRB. Failure to address these issues well in ad- the law in the private sector. They are deemed ille- vance will put many institutions at a decided dis- gal because “employees” may construe them as re- advantage. stricting their right to engage in insulting and de- meaning behavior toward their employer or their Joseph W. Ambash is a lawyer who represented supervisors relating to work issues. Brown University in the 2004 NLRB decision We will now see unfair labor-practice charges on student assistants. He filed an amicus brief filed by individual, nonunionized students claiming on behalf of Ivy League universities, Stanford, that some act of academic discipline for violation and MIT in the Columbia case.

Originally published on September 7, 2016

o c t ob e r 2016 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s 23 OPINION

Graduate-Student Unions Mean Good News for Professors, Too

By ALEX GOUREVITCH and SURESH NAIDU

he National Labor Relations Board’s re- This is particularly important in the academic cent decision that graduate students are context because of the high costs of training and employees who have a right to union- turnover and the high social value of academic ize has produced a predictable bout of labor. We want people to stay in academe: It is a hand-wringing among university ad- great and socially useful enterprise to produce and Tministrators. Elite institutions, like Columbia Uni- communicate knowledge. To retain people that versity, the University of Chicago, and Princeton love and excel at research and writing, universities University, have issued warnings that unions sup- should provide the material resources that let stu- press the individuality of graduate students under dents sustain themselves and their families so that the weight of “collectivist” solutions. Peter Salovey, Yale’s president, ex- pressed in a letter to the university com- munity his concern that graduate-student unionization would undermine the professor-student relationship. Yet, if anything, there is good reason to think unionization will lead to modest improve- ments in relations with professors. Ad- ministrators are not being honest about where the most substantial changes will lie: between graduate students and their administrator-employers, not their professors. There is a solid economic case for graduate unions. In their classic book, What Do Unions Do?, and in follow-up research, the economists Richard Free- man and James Medoff discussed two roles of unions. The first was promoting improvement in bargaining power and wages, important in its own right. But they also stressed the second role, where- in unions improve productivity by giving workers an institutionalized voice so they don’t have to change jobs to improve their working conditions. True, this role can involve burdensome rule-making and wasteful featherbedding; however, it also improves retention, makes recruit- ing easier, lowers turnover, and improves morale. PUI YAN FONG FOR THE CHRONICLE

24 union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2016

they don’t feel obliged to abandon their studies for ish less-favored graduate students by giving them the private sector. harder and educationally irrelevant classes, and to If administrators are looking for impediments require assistants to work longer than is reason- to graduate-student education, they might consid- able. Those changes sound beneficial for gradu- er the consequences of losing a visa because you ate-student education. had to change research groups, or of having a child What’s more, collective-bargaining agreements while lacking adequate parental-leave benefits, or liberate professors from having to administer the of being paid so little that you have to teach extra labor contract. University administrations tend to courses or work a second job. These bread-and- see professors as lower-level managers, and, under butter issues are not controlled by professors but current circumstances, that is not entirely wrong. by the many layers of administration that govern But academics should not be in the business of wages, job postings, health coverage, workload, working out contractual issues like how to deal time allocations, and visa conditions. with family leave. Using up mentor-mentee time But wages and benefits are not the elements trying to chase down a visa or begging a provost of some finely tuned intellectual relationship be- for a teaching exemption is a waste of everyone’s tween mentor and mentee. They are terms of time, and it is an invitation to favoritism. employment. Unions will change those terms by Indeed, the interpersonal cluelessness pervasive changing the nature of graduate-student relations in academe becomes downright destructive in the with their employers: the administration. professor-assistant context. We have both had to No organizations, even private universities, like deal with the fallout of graduate-student ill-treat- paying their employees more or giving up even ment by other faculty members, hardly what we small measures of power, and that is why they are have been trained for. A union would provide a hiding behind the worries about professor-student formal grievance procedure, decide whether the relationships. Administrators know that the big- case warranted bureaucratic escalation, and deal gest threat unions pose is to their untrammeled with it institutionally, a much better channel than control over the logistics behind university life. seeking out the ill-equipped junior faculty mem- But that does not mean there is nothing to say bers. Taking all of this out of professors’ hands is about what this means for professors. One of us not only fairer to graduate students, it gives the has been a professor at a university with gradu- professors more time to focus on the primary task: ate-student unions, and the other was a member educating their students. of two United Auto Worker unions through grad- If graduate students can form and maintain a uate school. Our experience is consistent with the democratic union, many of the results will serve NLRB’s view: It is difficult to detect any meaning- the educational mission. Graduate students should ful difference in the mentor-mentee relationship not be content to take temporary, low-paying em- between those positions and our current work for ployment with uncertain future job prospects; nonunion employers. That fact is easy to explain: they come to the university to start a career of By becoming union members, graduate students mastering the cumulative best of the stock of hu- do not suddenly forget why they went to graduate man knowledge. school, nor do they lose the academic impulse that With unionization, it is possible that fewer of drove them there. It is just that they are also em- them will have to teach classes of no relevance to ployees. their education or fulfill onerous and precarious This doesn’t mean that there may not be a few teaching responsibilities, freeing time for research necessary changes to the professor-student rela- and dissertation writing. Their interest in foster- tionship. Administrators are the current employ- ing relationships with their advisers and peers, ers of graduate labor, but faculty members write who actually matter for their research, will be the recommendation letters that are vital for the preserved. No union of graduate students would students’ future employment. This power can be want to tear those bonds apart — and no professor abused, and graduate unions rightfully take some should want to. (but only some!) of these prerogatives away from professors. Like every group whose privileges Alex Gourevitch is an assistant professor of po- come under threat, some professors will complain. litical science at Brown University and the au- But we suspect the complaints will be almost all thor of From Slavery to the Cooperative Com- over the teacher-assistant relationship, and very monwealth (Cambridge University Press, 2015). few over the mentor-mentee relationship. Suresh Naidu is an assistant professor in eco- Professors will lose the discretion to favor teach- nomics and international and public affairs at ing assistants with better appointments, to pun- Columbia University. Originally published on September 18, 2016

o c t ob e r 2016 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s 25 OPINION

PAT KINSELLA FOR THE CHRONICLE Academic Work Is Labor, Not Romance

BY SARA MATTHIESEN

he National Labor Relations Board de- in full, you should. The quote is just one of many livered a win for labor this month, rul- statements that will resonate with any academic ing that graduate students at private who sees herself as a worker. colleges are also employees. The action But one sentence in particular is especially rel- overturned a 2004 decision involving evant to the coming inevitable struggles between TBrown University that until now allowed adminis- precarious academic laborers and administra- trations to insist that collective bargaining would tors. “Labor disputes,” the board notes simply, imperil students’ academic pursuits. A number of “are a fact of economic life.” Such an unequivocal media outlets have helped circulate a particularly statement about the academy as a place of labor damning quote that describes the Brown decision is a surprising and rare admission; far more com- as having “deprived an entire category of workers mon are descriptors of academic work as a “labor of the protections of the Act, without a convinc- of love,” “an intellectual pursuit,” and “a life of the ing justification.” If you haven’t read the decision mind.” Unlike many academics, the NLRB de-

26 union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2016

cision refuses to romanticize academe. This ro- we rarely remember that they are far cheaper than manticization of academic labor is one of the most hiring anybody full time and long term, and a dwin- effective ways to obscure its actual costs. In con- dling number of tenured positions. trast, the NLRB posits the equivalent of: “Hello! Being honest about the actual demand for and Would you please treat the academy as just anoth- distribution of academic labor allows us to see the er realm of economic life?!” This is exactly what we devaluation of our profession as a chain reaction should do. rather than an unfortunate reality that only ad- Let’s start with the subject of the NLRB deci- juncts have to face. Instead of debating the eth- sion: graduate student workers at private colleges. ics of advising people to pursue graduate work or What would it mean to treat graduate students’ lamenting the death of the humanities, energies working conditions as “facts of economic life”? For would be better spent fighting for tenure-track starters, it would mean calling graduate students’ lines and trying to improve working conditions “stipends” what they actually are — paychecks. It across the board so that we stop the race to the would mean attaching actual terms to these pay- bottom — which has so thoroughly benefited those checks, so that if graduate students work more holding the purse strings. hours in the lab or teach beyond their class load, Seeing academic work as labor also provides a they are compensated for their additional labor. It much needed moment of reflection regarding the would mean approaching things like health insur- frenzied embrace of alternative academic careers, ance, dental care, and family leave as benefits that or “alt ac,” as the solution to our mischaracterized should be available to all employees rather than as scarcity problem. Academics can do their part to benevolent gifts that the administration can give cultivate a culture that refuses to shame graduate or take away depending on the political climate. students who decide academe is not for them with- When it comes to graduate students’ experiences out abandoning wholesale “traditional” academic with discrimination, exploitative advisers, or ha- programs. The push to infuse graduate programs rassment, it would mean acknowledging that such with “marketable skills” contributes to the devalua- incidents create hostile working conditions, and tion of skills traditionally honed during one’s grad- addressing them with grievance mechanisms ex- uate career: teaching, research, and mentorship. ternal to — rather than inseparable from — college While efforts to institutionalize alt-ac are structures. We cannot expect the college to ade- no doubt well-intentioned, they cede too much quately resolve what amount to workplace griev- ground to administrations and politicians who are ances if it refuses to acknowledge that it has em- more than happy to fuel the myth that there “just ployees, not simply slightly older undergraduates. aren’t enough jobs.” We should be skeptical of how Thanks to the NLRB ruling, it is far more likely enthusiastically colleges are supporting alt-ac ef- that these and other protections will be realized forts and redirect our concern about graduate stu- through contracts that exist precisely to decrease dents’ futures into organizing that creates more the incidence of dreaded “labor disputes.” job security within the academy. But it would be a mistake to see the NLRB rul- Taking seriously that “labor disputes are an eco- ing as significant only for graduate students at nomic fact of life” even in the academy would also private colleges. If, as Columbia University’s pro- mean paying attention to the labor battles being vost, John H. Coatsworth, told staff members in waged by those who work just as hard as “intel- an email following the ruling, “the advisor-advi- lectual workers” to keep colleges running — em- see relationships involved in the scholarly training ployees in facilities, dining, mail services, library of graduate students define an experience that is services, and administrative support. Adminis- different from that of the typical workplace,” what trations are equally if not more likely to try to cut should we make of his assessment of the people costs with these workers’ livelihoods, and it would providing this scholarly training? Of the academic be wise, not to mention just, to make clear that our enterprise writ large? respective labors together make colleges work. Another reason to make “a fact of economic life” In short, valuing academic labor would mean the academy’s mantra is because it insists on the val- defending it — from union-busting administra- ue — rather than the romance — of academic labor. tors, from a political climate hostile to public good, What would it look like to really value this profes- and from our own romantic, depoliticizing ideas sion? We could start by rejecting the superficial nar- about what it is we actually do. In a single sen- rative that “too many Ph.D.s” explains how a market tence, the NLRB gave all academics a road map. that is supposedly all supply and no demand has Those not already in the fight would do well to get coincided with ever-increasing college enrollments. on course. This would allow us to more clearly see the market for what it is: 50 percent temporary positions with Sara Matthiesen is a postdoctoral fellow in no benefits, a string of postdocs that are so coveted American studies at Brown University.

Originally published on August 26, 2016

o c t ob e r 2016 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion union e f f or t s b y g r a d s t ud e n t s 27 THE CHRONICLE of Higher Education®

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