Students unfazed by union debate

Pamphlets urging graduate students to "Think about it" and supplying reasons to vote against collective bargaining. Coalitions of labor leaders and listserv cries of solidarity. And plenty of people who could not care less. While partisans on both sides trade rhetorical blows, the stance of the individual graduate student on the unionization issue often seems dictated more by personal circumstances than ideological commitment. Though Penn boasts well over 9,000 graduate students, the number of graduate employees included in the "bargaining unit" and thus eligible to vote in union elections falls between 1,000 and 1,100, according to Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania estimates. Those in the unit tend to be concentrated in the humanities, leaving students who are ineligible to vote or enrolled in schools other than the School of Arts and Sciences less than enthusiastic about unionizing. "Oh, GET-UP and all that?" Engineering graduate student Sachin Daxini mused. "I don't really care one way or the other." Shasta Jones, a doctoral candidate in demography, voiced a similar lack of interest in the ongoing debate. "If I get one of the pamphlets the University has been sending out, I'll quickly glance through it and throw it out," Jones said. Nor is Jones particularly swayed by GET-UP. "I'm not convinced things would get better," Jones said. "When things have gotten bad in the past, the administration has always been fairly receptive." Interestingly, many in the bargaining unit itself voiced concerns about the implications of unionization for themselves and their departments. "I'm in a pretty small department, and it seems like it's a small-fish-in-a-big-pond kind of scenario, and that's making some people nervous," second-year music doctoral student Michael Masci said. Others were displeased to be included in the unit altogether. "I feel solidarity within my school and in my department," Engineering doctoral student Ken Lo maintained. "But I feel like if you guys want to be in a union, you humanities majors, that's all well and good, but don't take any money out of my pocket." "I find this union almost unconstitutional," Lo added. "I'd go so far as to say SEAS is probably fairly anti-union. But... we're going to be treated exactly the same as [those in the] humanities, who outnumber us by 3 to 1." "Okay, if humanities TAs get abused, [they can] go ahead and unionize," Lo continued. "But why am I getting dragged into this? Simple: GET-UP is playing a numbers game. They have more power over the administration and the healthcare plan they want to set up [if they have] more people in the bargaining unit." Lo also dismissed complaints by GET-UP sympathizers who claim that the current situation creates hardships for graduate employees supporting families. "Anyone planning on having kids while they're still... on a grad school stipend, please report to the Franklin Building," Lo said. "There's an error on your GRE scores." Still, there are those without a vested interest in unionization who admit to some empathy for struggling graduate employees. "I have a wife and daughter to take care of," Wharton MBA student Hideaki Hattori said. "As a husband and a father, I understand that it's important to think of their welfare."

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