Hasani Sinclair: In support of Penn's grad students

Last Friday, when Judy Rodin, Amy Gutmann and the trustees were proceeding from their meeting at the Inn at Penn to Houston Hall, I was standing with the graduate students who were protesting, and I was not the only undergraduate with the group. The group was GET-UP -- Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania -- and our signs read, "Count the Votes." One year ago today, I myself wasn't familiar with the graduate student unionization issue, but now I am a strong supporter of it.

On Feb. 26 and 27 last year, the National Labor Relations Board held an election at Penn in which graduate students voted on whether they wanted to form a teachers' union. I did not have a stance on the issue until last May, when I read "Eggheads Unite" in The New York Times, which outlined the GET-UP movement and spoke about Michael Janson, a doctoral student in the Political Science Department, and later, a teaching assistant of mine.

Graduate students lead an interesting life as both students and teachers. As students, they have their own course load of graduate-level classes. They also consider themselves to be employees. As many probably know, one of the main responsibilities of graduate students is teaching. They lead recitation sections, hold office hours and, on occasion, teach classes all by themselves. These TAs help undergraduate students understand the course material, prepare them for tests and quizzes, physically administer these tests and quizzes, grade them and, ultimately, administer and grade final exams.

I was still hesitant to take a stance on the issue of graduate student unionization until I learned a few facts about graduate employees. Graduate students at Penn receive a stipend that is often less than what is considered the minimum cost of living for a single adult in West Philadelphia, sadly putting validity behind the statement, "I'm just a poor graduate student."

What is more, graduate employees do not receive the same housing subsidies, child care and health care packages granted to Penn staff members, and are often without dental insurance or benefits for partners or dependents. Graduate students must also teach classes and face the prospect of more and more of the teaching workload being placed on their -- and not professors' -- shoulders.

This is an affordable option for universities, including Penn, as it gives professors more time to conduct research, while graduate students do more and more teaching. As it is, a graduate student's stipend is small compared to that of professors, making them in essence a source of cheap labor for universities. According to GET-UP, there is also a University policy by which graduate students are also not allowed to hold part-time jobs to supplement their income. They are asked more and more to do the work of professors, and universities do not compensate them accordingly; after all, they are just students.

Graduate employees seek an improvement in their working conditions through unionization. Specifically, they would like to see an improvement in their compensation and benefits, well-defined workloads and responsibilities, limits on class sizes, better TA training and more support for graduate students who are learning English as a second or third language.

These are by no means unreasonable demands; at many other universities, graduate students are considered both students and employees and are allowed to unionize. The NLRB has already decided, in a case involving NYU in 2000, that graduate students must also be considered employees and not just students. Within the past 25 years, there have been 13 separate legal decisions affirming that graduate students are both employees and students. The only difference with the NYU case is that it was the first involving a private institution.

Although a unionization election was held one year ago this week, Penn has hired a high-profile law firm and has made an appeal in court objecting to the NYU decision. As a result, the votes in the election have not yet been counted, and the democratic process by which graduate students may express their wish to unionize is in danger of being undermined.

At Penn, graduate students are not considered employees, contrary to legal precedent. At the very least, regardless of whether they voted "yes" or "no" last February, graduate students would like their votes to be counted so that the unionization process may go ahead.

Graduate students at Penn are not by any means an unfortunate few; they are among the most intelligent and most ambitious scholars around us, and have high hopes and bright futures ahead in the world of higher education. The University must acknowledge their issues and provide them with better conditions under which they may both teach and learn. Many of us will one day be graduate students, and we cannot risk turning a blind eye to the issue of graduate student unionization. Graduate students are one of the single most essential parts of our undergraduate learning experience. As undergraduates, we should take note of their condition and their issues and pledge our support for their cause.Hasani Sinclair is a senior political science major in the College and a member of the Undergraduate Support Committee for GET-UP.

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