Graduate student workers criticize Penn's FAQ page about upcoming union vote

Penn graduate students attempting to unionize criticized recent messaging from administration as being "anti-union."

The Office of the Provost forwarded a webpage to graduate students via email on Wednesday detailing the potential implications of unionization for student workers at Penn. The page, which had previously been shared directly with faculty, includes a list of “frequently asked questions” about union elections, dues, and contracts, among other logistical aspects of unionization.

According to Graduate Employees Together University of Pennsylvania-UAW organizer and sixth-year College Ph.D. student Sam Schirvar, this is the first direct communication graduate students have received from the University about unionizing, adding that he considers it to be explicitly anti-union messaging.

Schirvar said that he felt the wording of the email itself was “mild” and “pretty neutral,” but that the linked webpage included messaging that was “full of misleading anti-union rhetoric.” He added that he was specifically frustrated that Penn was using language to “third-party” the union; in other words, representing the union as an external entity between the employer and the employees.

“The fact is that GET-UP is made up of thousands of graduate workers like myself and other people. It's not a third party coming in to negotiate on our behalf. It's simply us coming together to negotiate together, because we have shared concerns and interests, and we can address those better as a group rather than individually,” Schirvar said.

In a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian, University spokesperson Ron Ozio wrote that Penn is aware that “a group of students” has filed with the National Labor Relations Board and will “await next steps from the NLRB on voter eligibility and election information.”

“Penn is proud of its collaborative culture and the many ways in which the University and its graduate students jointly address student concerns and enhance the academic experience. We encourage students to learn as much as they can about what unionization might mean for them,” Ozio wrote in the statement.

GET-UP organizer and College Ph.D. student Luella Allen-Waller said that she had been frustrated by the description of GET-UP as “a group of students” and its implication that GET-UP was not representing a majority of graduate students at the University.

“That language obscures the fact that 3,000 student workers signed on to this campaign and sort of muddies the water around who is involved, when the truth is a supermajority of graduate students are all in approval of this movement going forward,” Allen-Waller said, referring to the over 3,000 graduate students who signed authorization cards with the National Labor Relations Board as of Oct. 6.

Schirvar said that GET-UP’s letter to the University detailing their plans to file with the NLRB, which had roughly 600 signatures by the end of the rally on Oct. 4, has not received any other direct response from the administration.

Penn’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, a faculty organization whose members received the same FAQ page from the University over the summer, released a letter in August calling on the administration to take down the “anti-union messaging.” The website has since been updated by the Office of the Provost to include information about the status of the NLRB filing.

Allen-Waller said that she had anticipated at least some communication from the University in response to the NLRB filing. Based on the administration’s response to the unionization of resident advisors and medical residents, as well as reactions of peer institutions to worker unions, she said she expected some pushback from Penn.

Prior to being overruled by the NLRB, Penn argued that the RAs are not employees of the University, but instead classified them as student leaders with an "educational relationship" to Penn since they are not on the payroll. Union organizers and RAs had told the DP that they saw these arguments as a way to delay the election to officially unionize.

Allen-Waller said that GET-UP is preparing to be challenged by the University on the inclusion of research fellows and trainees who receive external funding in the union. She said that like other graduate students, these fellows conduct research that “supports Penn mission,” help to run Penn labs, and often complete teaching as a part of their time at Penn.

“We are committed to representing as many graduate workers as we can,” Allen-Waller said. “If Penn challenges our right to represent trainees and fellows on external support, for example, or any subcategory of graduate student, we will respond to that challenge."