Tim Lowenhaupt: Unable to support the strike

The issue regarding the graduate student work stoppage, slated for Thursday and Friday, has been painted in such a way that I have found it difficult to maneuver through the problems. There are several issues that I think are collectively worth fighting for: fifth-year funding, dental insurance, affordable spouse and dependent health insurance, and simply the democratic process in general. However, my difficulties arise out of concerns over structure and process.

First, I am concerned that the representative scope of the union would not truly constitute a representative voice of all graduate students since only those students who are in service would have voting privileges. It worries me that only a handful of graduate students, much less than a majority, would have the voting power to decide on contracts and strikes -- which would affect all graduate students, not only those in service, because we would all be members of the union and bound to its decisions. Are there plans for a legislative, representative body similar to the structure of the legislative branch of our government? Second, the University is within its legal rights to appeal the decision of the National Labor Relations Board. Although it may be questionable why they are appealing, is that enough reason to stop working?

As much as I agree that having a collective voice that is already organized in advance is better than having to grass-root a movement each time there is an issue or problem (like how some students moving into their fifth year have lost or will lose their funding, although it was "guaranteed"), I am having a difficult time supporting a rhetoric that casts "them" as oppressors and "us" as the privileged and deserving. "Employees" have a right, under law, to unionize, but I really question the use of such devices and to what extent we are being exploited. What is the relative privilege of attending a graduate program at a university such as Penn? Sure, if we compare our situation with our peer institutions, then it looks a bit grim. But if we compare our lot with other institutions in general, claiming unfavorable conditions seems a lot less justified. Just because we already are cushy by virtue of being at an upper-class institution, does that mean that we should advocate complacency?

Yet the ways that both groups have presented themselves has not helped their cases but reinforced the negative light in which they have already been cast. If and when the votes are counted -- the same votes that were cast by only a small percentage of graduate students and which will probably come out in favor of a union -- a long-brewed negative relationship and atmosphere will come to the bargaining table.

This strike will only foster more resentment since the University will probably not terminate the appeals process due to the work stoppage -- yet it will have to shoulder the frustration of dealing with classes that have not been taught or covered. Is that the type of antagonistic atmosphere that is desirable at Penn?

If I don't strike, does that mean that somehow I'm letting down those advocating for a collective bargaining unit and that I could have instead been part of a concrete step toward a solution? The fact is that concrete actions have been in the works, especially this year, without the public recognition that I think such endeavors deserve. A graduate student advocacy group of which I am a member at large, the Graduate Student Associations Council, has been working closely with graduate students and the administration to resolve, for example, funding gaps in the School of Arts and Sciences. However, in my view, GSAC has been placed into a silent non-position, even by Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania itself, in spite of the fact that both groups are working to better the conditions of graduate study and teaching. Maintaining such a position towards GSAC turns GET-UP into the same impenetrable monolith that it claims to be fighting against. Who is really fighting whom?

It concerns me that less than 300 graduate students voted for the strike and only 83 percent of those voted in favor. Not only are the voting privileges of graduate students limited as set out in the NLRB guidelines, but only a small percentage of graduate students really are in support of a work stoppage. As much as I support and will continue to work very hard to advocate for graduate students, I am having a very difficult time standing firmly behind this strike.Tim Lowenhaupt is a Hispanic Studies graduate student.

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