GET-UP to continue union battle

While University officials are pleased with last week's ruling by the National Labor Relations Board, graduate student union groups are determined to continue the fight for student employee rights at Penn.

The regional NLRB ruled that Penn's graduate level teaching and research assistants are students and do not have the right to unionize under the umbrella protection of the NLRB. The decision reflected a similar NLRB ruling on Brown University given in July.

University President Amy Gutmann agreed with the NLRB decision but saw it as a way to open lines of communication.

"I'm really delighted that it gives me the opportunity to work with our organized grad student groups to make graduate education even stronger at Penn," she said.

In February, members of the would-be union Graduate Employees Together University of Pennsylvania staged a two-day strike protesting the University's inaction on the graduate student unionization issue.

Picket lines were formed, and some recitation sessions were canceled or rescheduled, but the demonstration received no response from Penn officials.

According to interim Provost Peter Conn, "That debate was distracting, quite frankly."

He added that, with the recent NLRB ruling, "That distraction, in my view, has now ended."

Leaders of GET-UP say, however, that they will continue to push for graduate student employee benefits.

Sayumi Takahashi, GET-UP co-chairwoman and a Ph.D. candidate in comparative literature and literary theory, said that she was disappointed by the regional decision but not surprised.

"A few things changed ... but we can still have a union, [just] not protected by [the] NLRB act," Takahashi said.

The University may choose to voluntarily recognize GET-UP as a union, but has not done so.

"The NLRB ruling really highlights how much larger a political issue" is at stake, Takahashi added. The "problems that spurred people to unionize in academia are still there, and this ruling does not address this problem."

Liz McElroy, a local campaign organizer for the American Federation of Teachers which has supported GET-UP in the past said that the AFT plans to keep moving forward with the campaign.

McElroy said that she is meeting with Philadelphia union leaders this week to discuss strategies, including whether her organization will appeal the NLRB decision.

Both GET-UP and AFT will continue to address complaints of low stipends, heavy workloads, poor health care, inadequate housing and nonexistent child care.

The groups are looking to open a dialogue with University administrators and officials.

According to Takahashi, GET-UP has sent letters to Gutmann and asked to schedule a meeting with her, with no response as of yet.

Independent of the University's response or lack thereof, the organizations are determined to move forward with their goals.

AFT spokesman Jamie Horowitz said he thinks "that, at a university with [this] kind of precedent, history and tradition as it relates to democracy, it is extremely embarrassing not to recognize workers' right to vote."

He added that AFT will "do everything in its power to keep [this] issue on the front burner."

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