Defending TF Unions

First came vague threats. "Do not become involved in campus politics to your detriment," one professor warned in her written comments on my paper, the warning as prominent as the grade. Then the threats became explicit. If my colleagues and I didn't stop our union drive for graduate-student teachers, one professor informed me, jabbing her finger at me furiously, she would ensure that none of us ever taught. Some of my fellow graduate students received more than threats; the dean's letter of recommendation for a woman applying for professorships explained that her union activity made her a risky candidate. In the increasingly shrinking job market at universities, such a letter is likely to ruin any chance for her success in academia. Instead of a place of free intellectual exchange, Yale University was a place of tight political control.

The thoughts of a graduate student in English are naturally supposed to revolve around something like the rise of the novel or the function of satire. Yet when I was such a graduate student at Yale in the mid-'90s, I found that I thought more about collective bargaining, binding arbitration and union-busting. Yale's campus saw three painful labor strikes in 1995, when neither of the recognized unions was able to settle a new contract with the university and the nascent teaching fellows union was forcefully pushing for legal recognition. While the unions for clerical/technical and service/maintenance workers finally won contracts, graduate student teachers did not. Their struggle has continued over the last five years.

That struggle may have started its last mile on the road to success last month, when the National Labor Relations Board ruled that teaching fellows at private universities are eligible to organize (teaching fellows at public universities, covered by state rather than federal law, have been in recognized unions for over 30 years). With this decision, Harvard TFs are now legally able to form a union. If they consider this option, the Harvard community should reflect on the shameful response to the graduate student union movement at Yale to avoid replicating the sorry experiences of our colleagues in Connecticut.

While no formal union movement is afoot--the Graduate Student Council consistently says there is no need for a union--I have heard students at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences report dissatisfaction with many of the issues that plague their counterparts at Yale, from uncertainty about the availability of teaching positions to the lack of prescription coverage in their health insurance. Although I believe that a TF union provides an important way to reach progress on these issues, I acknowledge that reasonable people can disagree about the need for or advisability of such a union. What disappointed me at Yale, though, was the way those opposed to a union expressed their disagreement. The negative environment I described above did not need to accompany the union drive; it stemmed from attempts to shut down the union, not from attempts to organize it. Intimidation and coercion, not lux et veritas, seemed to be the university's motto.

Do not let that not happen here. However Harvard TFs decide to approach their concerns, the administration should take them seriously and engage in rational dialogue with the clear goal of improving graduate students' living and working conditions. Yale officials lost a lot of credibility among graduate students by denying that problems existed and by promising changes that never took place; as a result, many graduate students who had been ambivalent about a union became convinced that only a union could bring about change. The Harvard administration should not plan to squelch a union, should one ever appear, but to address the real concerns of graduate students.

Faculty, too, should promote their graduate students' best interests by listening seriously and respectfully if TFs discuss unionizing. Yale professors frequently claimed that a union would get in the way of positive mentoring relationships, yet they worked to destroy any chance for positive relationships by scaring their students into submission. A TF union would not pit TFs against professors unless professors themselves did the pitting.

Finally, undergraduates should consider the important roles that TFs play in their education. At Yale, the TF union was the primary voice in favor of small section sizes, English-language training for foreign TFs and improved teacher training overall. Better working conditions for graduate students mean better classroom conditions for undergraduates. Undergraduates help themselves when they champion TF concerns.

Whether Harvard TFs decide to unionize should be the decision of Harvard TFs. By accepting the NLRB decision instead of lending support to those who are fighting it, the Harvard community has the opportunity to take the high road where Yale has failed. Harvard prides itself on being a model for other private universities in our educational excellence; we should set a good example in our labor decisions as well.

Eloise H. Pasachoff '95 was the Chair of Yale's Graduate Employees and Students Organization in 1996-97. She is currently a student in the joint-degree program at the Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Law School.