Grad students get lowdown on unions

A group of graduate students gathered in the Towne Building yesterday afternoon, coffee in hand, listening intently to the lecturer and scribbling down notes -- but it wasn't for a class.

Instead, it was for information that could impact their salaries, insurance and work conditions.

The Graduate Student Associations Council and the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly -- both officially neutral on the issue of graduate student unionization -- organized a forum to present both sides of the debate.

"My primary reason for coming was to get information from someone outside [Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania] and the administration," said Christine Schweidler, a fourth-year School of Arts and Sciences graduate student who is in favor of unionization. "It was helpful."

The forum featured a lecture by Emeritus Law Professor Clyde Summers, as well as written statements from GET-UP and Deputy Provost Peter Conn.

Last month, the NLRB granted GET-UP the right to hold union elections. But the University filed an appeal last week so if elections are held early next semester, the votes will be impounded until the NLRB's decision is reached.

"The problem of delay is a special problem in this case," said Summers, who noted that he believes the choice to unionize should be left up to the graduate students. "Everybody is here, at least hopefully, for a limited period of time."

Not only would the "original agitators" have left Penn several years from now, but even as soon as next week, four new NLRB members will be sworn in by the Bush administration. Summers said that University officials want to capitalize on the idea that "you will get a different result because you have a different board."

Following Summers' lecture, GSAC President Elise Carpenter read aloud GET-UP's statement -- which said that the organization plans on having individual conversations with every graduate student employee over the course of the campaign -- and Conn's statement, which discussed how unionization would affect graduate students' taxes, stipends and health insurance.

"Penn graduate students need only ask the unionized graduate students at Temple to find that they are paying full Pennsylvania income and city wage taxes as union employees," Conn wrote in the statement.

However, Carpenter disagreed with Conn's argument about taxes, saying that "unionization doesn't actually affect that."

Yesterday's event also consisted of a question-and-answer session in which audience members touched on various topics such as the definition of an employee, how a union would affect University stipends and who would control union dues.

Summers said he felt compelled to study the NLRB ruling and inform students about it because biased and incorrect information has been circulated about the issue of graduate student unionization.

"The way [University President Judith Rodin] said things simply gave the wrong idea of what it really was," Summers said.

"I'm a teacher," he added. "I'm like a fire engine. Whenever there's a fire, I smell the smoke."

As both students and administrators wait indefinitely for the NLRB's decision to uphold or rescind its original ruling, Penn's campus is apt to see similar discussions erupting around campus.

"We anticipate an election will occur, directed by the NLRB... and we expect it to happen in the latter part of February," Conn said last night after the forum. "We look forward to participating in active discussion of both sides of the issue and lots of opposing views to be shared and compared."

Fewer than 30 students braved yesterday's downpour to attend the forum in Heilmeier Hall.

"I'm disappointed at the low turnout," Carpenter said, adding that information will be posted on GSAC's Web site for those who could not attend.

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