April 17, 2008

Bill Would Grant TA's at Private Colleges the Right to Form Unions

Washington — A bill introduced in Congress by the Democratic chairmen of the Senate and House of Representatives education committees would take the political mystery out of whether graduate assistants at private colleges and universities have the right to form labor unions.

The National Labor Relations Board has ruled both ways on the issue. In a landmark 2000 ruling, it asserted that graduate students at New York University could unionize, and a wave of union-organization efforts followed. But that movement faltered four years later, when a reconstituted board decided that teaching assistants at Brown University were primarily students rather than employees, and therefore were not covered by federal labor law.

The measure introduced today by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Rep. George Miller of California would amend the National Labor Relations Act so that the definition of an employee would specifically include teaching and research assistants at private universities and colleges, according to a statement on the senator’s Web site. —Charles Huckabee

Comments

1. Clearly, graduate assistants are members of the working class and should be encouraged to organize. If the fat cats of the labor bureaucracy will not organize them, perhaps they should consider signing up with the Industrial Workers of the World. Unlike the labor bureaucracy, the Wobblies have not forgotten the old proletarian saying that “an injury to one is an injury to all.” Throughout history the Wobblies have organized those workers that the bureaucratic, capitalist unions see as “unorganizable” such as t.a.‘s, rodeo cowboys, maids, etc. etc. In the current economic environment where education and educators are undervalued, teaching assistants need a union that will really fight for them. WE NEVER SLEEP—WE NEVER FORGET.

   — Donald Winters    Apr 18, 12:06 PM    #

2. Way to go Ted!

   This should really open up classroom space, as graduate programs shut down and schools lay off their TAs and RAs.

   — Michael    Apr 18, 03:44 PM    #

3. You all seem to forget that unionization is the only way grad students will ever get a job—-Don’t you think you’ve whored off their labor long enough?

   — Tom    Apr 18, 09:43 PM    #

4. Tom: Amen.

   — Donald Winters    Apr 19, 10:17 AM    #

5. It doesn’t make any difference if the TAs are paid by grant money or general funds. If it is a closed shop, neither the university nor the individual professor can play the grads off against each other and will have to deal with the union when they abuse their employees. Even without the closed shop, scientific researchers are even less likely than Englsih professors to hire the cheapest labor available. You don’t run your experiments on the cyclotron in Uncle Festus’ basement and you don’t tell your best researcher to hit the road because hu joined the union.

   — David A. McCullough    Apr 21, 10:25 AM    #

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