Grad students digheels in on unions
Despite ruling, they plan job actions in bid to organize
Tufts University graduate student Lindy Bumgarner says she does the work of an adjunct professor for half the pay.
''In the humanities, graduate students are in charge of their own classrooms, creating syllabi, distributing exams, and coming up with curricula," said Bumgarner, 29. ''We are not apprentices really, but we are not recognized as workers in the full sense of the word either."
Bumgarner is among thousands of frustrated graduate students who are at the center of a ruling by the National Labor Relations Board that says graduate students at private universities are not workers and, as such, do not have the right to organize a union to negotiate wages and benefits or settle grievances.
Today, three months after the board's ruling, graduate students who teach, grade papers, advise freshmen, conduct research, or oversee labs at Tufts, Brown, and Columbia universities say they haven't given up and will continue their push for union representation. At Columbia, they are preparing to strike. At Tufts, they are trying to increase the size of the 150-member Association of Student Employees. And at Brown, they have pledged to hold sit-ins or other job actions, if necessary.
''We still have the right to strike," said Philip Wheeler, director of Region 9-A of the United Auto Workers in Farmington, Conn. which represents the Northeast. He said plans are underway for a walkout at Columbia University, where graduate students struck in April 2004. In addition, graduate students who have been involved in union organizing at the University of Pennsylvania, Brown, and Tufts have agreed to pitch in and help.
Striking, they say, will underscore how valuable student workers are, and may persuade colleges to reach nonbinding agreements with students over wages, benefits, and working conditions. New York University is the nation's only private college to allow grad students to unionize because the school believed it was in its best interest to do so.
Wheeler and students say many universities are reluctant to allow unionization because it would cost the schools millions of dollars to provide student workers with the wages and benefits that full- and part-time professors enjoy.
''If we have to strike for recognition, then we will do it," Wheeler said. Without graduate students teaching classes, he said, ''how will the universities go on?"
Even so, the labor board decision was a blow to the UAW, which has organized dozens of state universities over the past 20 years, bringing an estimated 10,000 graduate students enrolled at public institutions into its ranks. The federal board's decision will not affect public universities like the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, which was organized by the UAW several years ago, or the University of California's higher-education system. That's because public institutions are governed by state laws, and the NLRB has no jurisdiction over them. The federal body does, however, have a say over what happens at private corporations and institutions.
In all, there are an estimated 2 million graduate students on public and private university campuses, according to the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students. The UAW says many of those students perform, on average, more than 50 percent of the teaching and grading at private institutions. Of the nation's graduate students, about 40 percent are enrolled at private colleges and universities.
University officials argue that graduate students who work as teaching assistants are apprentices honing their skills, not full employees. They also say that the duties graduate students hold are preparation for future careers.
''Being a teaching assistant is an apprenticeship and not just a paying job," said Robin Kanarek, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts. ''I really do not think graduate students are employees in the same way that an administrative assistant is. They are getting trained for what they will do for the rest of their lives."
Kanarek said there are 1,000 graduate students on the Tufts campus in Medford. Of those, 700 are candidates for the master's degree; the rest are doctoral degree candidates. Those seeking doctorates receive $29,000 in full tuition, said Kanarek. However, stipends for master's degree candidates vary widely.
In addition, the annual earnings of graduate teaching assistants range from about $15,000 per year to a little more than $20,000, depending on the field of study. Currently, the university pays ''health insurance fees" for doctoral candidates, but not for graduate students in master's degree programs, Kanarek said.
The university plans to add a dormitory for undergraduates, which should create more space on campus for graduate students, said Kanarek. And, she said, the university increased its stipends for graduate students three times under her watch.
But Bumgarner, who is working on a doctorate in theater history and performance, is still struggling to make ends meet. Adjunct professors in her department earn $2,500 to $4,000 per course, she said, but not graduate teaching assistants.
''I teach two courses and I make half that," said Bumgarner. ''I don't think that's fair. I understand the university's point of view because we are in search of an advanced degree, but a middle ground should be met."
Jeff Vander Veen, 33, teaches an American literature and writing course to freshmen at Tufts three days a week. He earns about $6,500 per course, or $13,000 per year. Vander Veen says he manages because his wife is a school teacher and earns about $40,000 per year, but meeting expenses is not easy. He expects to begin working on his dissertation for a doctorate next fall.
''I've been fairly well treated," Vander Veen said. ''But if I had children or if I were not married, this would not be a living wage."
Other graduate students argue that campus life is far more hectic than it was in the past, with more courses, larger classes, and more grading to do. They also say that they live in higher-cost communities where housing, food, and clothing expenses consume their earnings.
Sheyda Jahanbani, a teaching assistant at Brown, joined the union organizing drive on campus after she got her roster a few years ago and discovered that she had been assigned 102 students.
''I had so many students that I couldn't even remember some of their names," said Jahanbani, who is working on a doctorate in 20th-century US history. ''The compensation is not commensurate with a full-time job, yet we are required to put in those kinds of hours."
Karen Newman, dean of the graduate school at Brown, was in Europe last week and could not be reached for comment.
Diane E. Lewis can be reached at
dlewis@globe.com. 