City Council opposes Penn's union stance

The drive toward graduate-employee unionization, it seems, does not abide by Penn's academic calendar. While the fall's spirited campus debate cooled during winter break, Philadelphia's political community weighed in during the University's inter-semester hibernation. Responding to the University's appeal of the Region 4 office of the National Labor Relations Board's decision to allow graduate students in the proposed bargaining unit to hold union elections -- which have recently been set for Feb. 26-27 -- both the Philadelphia City Council and the Philadelphia Central Labor Council passed strongly worded and nearly identical resolutions on Dec. 19 and Jan. 7, respectively. Each urged administrators to allow Penn's "graduate employees" "to form a union and bargain collectively in an environment free of interference, intimidation, coercion, harassment, reprisals or delay." Whatever its rhetorical value, neither resolution will have any effect on University policy or the NLRB's ruling, according to University spokeswoman Lori Doyle and NLRB Assistant Regional Director John Breese. "Everybody's got a view on everything," Breese noted. "We have to make a decision based on the law." Doyle echoed Breese's dismissal of the resolutions. "Since these resolutions have no force of law, we don't expect the resolutions to have any impact on the situation here," she said. Rather, the University intends to begin making its case in the coming weeks by providing graduate students with "factual information. "We expect that when they examine the facts, they'll conclude that unionization is not the best route," Doyle said. Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania -- the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations affiliated organizing committee that leads the unionization drive -- has filed unfair labor practices complaints against Penn under the National Labor Relations Act for allegedly threatening to change the tax status of graduate students should they form a union. Furthermore, many people -- including GET-UP community campaign coordinator Tina Collins -- see Penn's appeal and legal opposition as mere "delay tactics." Although a date for union elections has been set, the results of that election will be kept under lock and key, with the votes impounded until the University's appeal to the NLRB is resolved. The possibility that February's votes may be rendered irrelevant apparently struck an ideological nerve with members of the City Council and the local union leaders and delegates who comprise the CLC. "People have an instinctive reaction against the votes not being counted if the appeal is dropped," Collins explained. "It has a lot of political resonance." With the City Council's resolution passing 16-0 and the CLC's passing unanimously, the resolutions are "a very clear indication of the kind of support we have in the Philadelphia political community," Collins said. "It is reasonable to ask for the votes to be counted once the NLRB has allowed an election.... It's a hard thing to spin against." "It was sort of self-evident," GET-UP co-chairwoman Elizabeth Williamson said. "There wasn't really much of a struggle." Indeed, the only member of the City Council who did not vote for the resolution was Jannie Blackwell, who represents West Philadelphia's Third District, which includes the University. Councilman-at-Large David Cohen, whom Collins called "an incredibly longstanding supporter of progressive causes and labor movements in particular," echoed Williamson's remarks. "I don't remember a single voice of dissent," Cohen said. A labor lawyer, one-time mayoral candidate and graduate of Penn's law school and now-defunct undergraduate school of education, Cohen was more than happy to introduce the resolution. "I don't think you can live a decent life if you don't have democratic working rights," he said, adding that fair labor policy "strengthens democracy and makes the country stronger and better." Many of Cohen's colleagues agreed that Penn's "technical objections" to the resolution should be overcome by what they perceive as ideological problems with the University's position. "When Ben Franklin and those folks created Penn, they visualized it with... a social duty," Councilman Angel Ortiz said, "and as one of the main institutions of learning in this country, it has an obligation to set the tone... to allow people to organize and represent themselves." Both the City Council and the CLC's resolutions also cited the "tens of millions of dollars in tax abatements from the city of Philadelphia... and... additional hundreds of millions of dollars of public funding from both state and federal sources" Penn enjoys as powerful reminders of this private University's public obligations. Hugh Allen, legislative aide to Councilman Richard Mariano, summed up the City Council's reason for picking up the issue. "It's the type of thing that affects everybody," he said.