Grad students move to unionize
Nathan Cohen
Issue date: 5/8/07 Section: News
Graduate students looking to unionize during the coming school year will face some major hurdles. First of all, it's illegal.
Graduate student leaders would like to use collective bargaining to give students leverage in settling disputes with mentors and in negotiations over health care benefits and wages for teaching assistants. But they will first have to convince Annapolis legislators to place them on the list of state employees that can unionize legally.
Graduate Student Government President Laura Moore said she will be part of an effort to lobby the Maryland General Assembly, and that she hopes to have legislation pre-filed by next January, when the legislature's next session begins. They have already enlisted the support of state Sen. Jim Rosapepe (D-Prince George's and Anne Arundel), who follows university-related legislation closely.
However, the university has not taken a public stance on the issue and graduate school Dean Charles Caramello said he sees no reason for students to unionize. He cited a 4.5 percent increase in teaching assistant wages set for next year and said mechanisms already in place for dealing with student-mentor conflicts are sufficient.
"We all want to achieve the same ends," Caramello said: "excellence."
Assistant university President Ann Wylie said the school will not be taking an official stance on graduate students unionizing until legislation to allow it has been introduced in the state assembly.
Moore dismissed the graduate school's stance as "lip service" and said if graduate students want to see change, they will have to fight for it themselves. She said that many students have seen their tuition and rent rise more than the proposed wage increase and said the university has done little to prevent faculty members and advisers from taking advantage of them.
"We really don't think we're moving foward," she said. "We're moving backward a bit."
Hellmut Lotz, a government and politics graduate student familiar with the issue, said he supports the drive to unionize because he says many of his fellow graduate students are losing most of their wages to housing costs. "When you work at McDonald's, you have a contract and you can take it or leave it, but with a union, you can negotiate," said Lotz. "[Graduate students] generate hundreds of thousands of dollars for the university and get paid peanuts."
Graduate student leaders would like to use collective bargaining to give students leverage in settling disputes with mentors and in negotiations over health care benefits and wages for teaching assistants. But they will first have to convince Annapolis legislators to place them on the list of state employees that can unionize legally.
Graduate Student Government President Laura Moore said she will be part of an effort to lobby the Maryland General Assembly, and that she hopes to have legislation pre-filed by next January, when the legislature's next session begins. They have already enlisted the support of state Sen. Jim Rosapepe (D-Prince George's and Anne Arundel), who follows university-related legislation closely.
However, the university has not taken a public stance on the issue and graduate school Dean Charles Caramello said he sees no reason for students to unionize. He cited a 4.5 percent increase in teaching assistant wages set for next year and said mechanisms already in place for dealing with student-mentor conflicts are sufficient.
"We all want to achieve the same ends," Caramello said: "excellence."
Assistant university President Ann Wylie said the school will not be taking an official stance on graduate students unionizing until legislation to allow it has been introduced in the state assembly.
Moore dismissed the graduate school's stance as "lip service" and said if graduate students want to see change, they will have to fight for it themselves. She said that many students have seen their tuition and rent rise more than the proposed wage increase and said the university has done little to prevent faculty members and advisers from taking advantage of them.
"We really don't think we're moving foward," she said. "We're moving backward a bit."
Hellmut Lotz, a government and politics graduate student familiar with the issue, said he supports the drive to unionize because he says many of his fellow graduate students are losing most of their wages to housing costs. "When you work at McDonald's, you have a contract and you can take it or leave it, but with a union, you can negotiate," said Lotz. "[Graduate students] generate hundreds of thousands of dollars for the university and get paid peanuts."
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Emily
posted 5/08/07 @ 7:21 AM EST
This has been a long time coming. Since I was at the university, from 2001-2005, there were grumblings of the graduate students unionizing. It still hasn't come to fruition. (Continued…)
Chris
posted 5/08/07 @ 10:51 PM EST
Thank god. I know of no schools where the graduate TA stipend is lower while the cost of living here is through the roof. The 4.5% pay increase is appreciated but horribly insufficient. (Continued…)
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