U. officials urge grad students not to unionize

As graduate student unionization efforts continue, University administrators outlined their strong stance against a union on campus in a message sent to all graduate students this week.

Deputy Provost Peter Conn sent an e-mail to Penn's roughly 10,000 graduate students on Tuesday, cautioning them of potential complications that would arise from signing authorization cards for Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania.

GET-UP publicly launched a unionization campaign last spring following the National Labor Relations Board's decision several months earlier to grant graduate students at New York University the right to unionize.

The New York decision set a legal precedent for unionization at private universities, and now GET-UP is looking to form a union at Penn to raise pay and improve conditions for graduate students, who frequently serve as teaching and research assistants.

But according to Conn, the administration views graduate students as students, and not employees of the University, negating the argument for unionization.

"Graduate students are graduate students," Conn said in an interview Tuesday. "They are not employees."

Yet the union effort has continued to gain strength as GET-UP recently began distributing authorization cards to potential members. Authorization cards are the first step in a many-tiered process that could ultimately lead to unionization at Penn.

Conn advised students that such cards are not only used in petitioning for an election, which would select a union to represent Penn's graduate students.

"It is also an application for membership in the union," he wrote. "Standard union authorization cards legally bind the signer to the union's bylaws and constitution, and subject the signer to union discipline, fines and assessments."

GET-UP officials were unwilling to refute disagreements on a point-by-point basis, instead repeating their overall support for a union on Penn's campus.

"We are running a positive and open campaign, and are of course committed to open discussion and democracy," GET-UP spokesman Ed Webb, a political science Ph.D. student, said in an e-mail statement. "We have given the administration every opportunity to interact with us in a civil and mature manner, and see no need to respond to negative tactics."

Administrators also warn that unionization could lead to potentially long and drawn-out contract negotiations, the threat of strikes and a possible erosion of the relationship between students and professors.

Furthermore, Penn administrators also cite recent improvements in graduate students' quality of life, including an increase in stipends and paid health insurance premiums for over 1,100 students, as reasons to refrain from forming a union.

Yet GET-UP has said these changes are not enough. According to the group's leaders, graduate students are often overworked but make less than the minimum cost of living. Through unionization, GET-UP says they could seek a more professional atmosphere with fairer pay, better working conditions and increased benefits.

However, the administration disputes that some of these issues would not be negotiable by a union at all because they fall under the scope of academic -- and not employment -- matters.

Conn pointed out that in regard to pay, unions have not always been able to make a substantial impact, citing figures in The Chronicle of Higher Education that indicate on the average, many non-unionized graduate students earn more than those belonging to unions.

Unionization, Conn said, would not be beneficial for anyone.

"Part of what makes me uncomfortable is that there is no us-them here," Conn said Tuesday. "For us, there is a well-established, profoundly important, collegial relationship which will be threatened by a workplace collective bargaining union model."

Conn's e-mail was written partly in response to the circulation of the authorization cards, which would be submitted to the National Labor Relations Board's regional office with a petition for recognition after at least 30 percent of those who would be represented by the union sign the cards. A board officer would then decide whether hearings involving both the University and union representatives would proceed.

If after such hearings -- which could last for months, according to Conn -- the board makes a decision as to whether or not elections will be held by secret ballot. If a majority of those voting in the election voted in favor of unionization, GET-UP would become graduate employees' representation.

Authorization cards give unions the right to bargain on the signer's behalf, in effect granting power of attorney to the union. Conn reminded students they did not need to sign authorization cards in order to discuss unionization issues.

"We don't believe that the track record of unions with respect to financial gains is impressive," he said in an interview yesterday.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.