Tufts TAs win battle for unionization

Graduate students at Tufts University have won the right to hold union elections in a decision that bears significance upon a similar ongoing struggle among Penn graduate students. The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that graduate teaching assistants at Tufts are legally considered employees and can vote to elect a union to represent them in negotiations with the university. Tufts joins the ranks of such institutions as Brown, Columbia and New York universities, all of which have recently received the same pro-union judgement. Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania is currently awaiting a decision from the NLRB on whether a select group of Penn graduate students has the right to hold union elections. Hearings on the matter, which were held at the board's local headquarters downtown, concluded last month. "We are very confident that the NLRB will authorize an election," GET-UP spokesman Shane Duarte said. "The Tufts decision is just another confirmation that this is the direction the law has taken and is going to continue to take." The NLRB found that in the case of Tufts, teaching assistants do act as employees in their functions in the areas of research, teaching, preparing class material and grading. However, University spokeswoman Lori Doyle maintained that graduate students are students and not employees. "The teaching experience is an important component of all doctoral training," Doyle said. "Most graduate programs stipulate two semesters of training experience as a part of their Ph.D. program." Doyle went on to state that the University currently does offer its graduate students financial packages comparable to those of students who have voted to unionize. "We're acutely aware of our stipends and how they compare with other peer institutions," Doyle said. "We have been offering high stipends and benefits without the need for a third party." Doyle maintains that the unionization may even thwart graduate student attempts to raise benefits. She said that even if the University wanted to improve benefits, it would not be able to do so immediately, due to the extensive union contracting proceedings. Tufts University President Lawrence Bacow shares similar sentiments. In a recent statement, he said a union of graduate students would make it increasingly difficult for the university to work with the students in reaching compromises and achieving objectives. He admitted that graduate students at Tufts should be better compensated, but questioned the methods of unionization in accomplishing this task. He said he believes the union will add nothing that the graduate students could not pursue on their own. For these reasons, he closed his statement by encouraging the graduate population at Tufts to vote against unionization. On the other hand, these types of favorable rulings on unionization are encouraging for Penn graduate students, who have already embarked on a huge campaign for unionization. Last December, GET-UP filed authorization cards with the NLRB which were signed by more than 30 percent of graduate students in its bargaining unit, the minimum amount of students required for an NLRB hearing. GET-UP followed these efforts with rallies on College Green demonstrating their support for graduate student unionization. Still, Doyle maintains that the University's position is the right one and said she believes that "graduate students at Penn are scholarly and astute thinkers" who will eventually come to the same decision and vote to not unionize.