Preempting TF Unions

What would a week without Teaching Fellows (TFs) be like? We no longer have to wonder—all we have to do is ask our peers at Columbia and Yale, where non-science graduate teaching assistants are on strike this week fighting for their right to unionize. While we sympathize with the demands of graduate students at these schools, we feel that unionization is not the best way to solve the problems inherent in the current system for both undergraduates and graduate students. Instead, universities should proactively enact changes to improve the way TFs are paid and the responsibilities they are given—changes that will be beneficial to all.

Unionization at Columbia and Yale is popular among non-science graduate students largely due to salary issues. However, the National Labor Review Board has decided that graduate students do not have the right to unionize because they are primarily students, not employees. Consequently, the only way graduate students feel they can secure pay raises is by pressuring the university into letting them unionize. Surprisingly, this unionization movement has not caught on at Harvard, although health benefits and overall salaries at Columbia and Yale appear to be higher.

The creation of a union would no doubt address the grievances of graduate students at Yale and Columbia. A union could advocate on behalf of TFs to an unprecedented extent. Additionally, the university-wide common pay scales that the graduate student organizations are calling for would be a marked improvement over flat payment schemes that are currently used, which give TFs little incentive to improve or invest more time in their teaching. Unionization could also fix financial aid for graduate students, the terms of which in many instances require them to teach sections. No undergraduate should have to endure a section taught by someone who doesn’t even want to be there.

These advantages aside, a union is no panacea. From an undergraduate’s perspective, unions could hold many downsides. A standardized pay scale could encourage TFs to increase the amount of hours they work by taking over responsibilities from professors, leading to the institutionalization of graduate-student teaching and the expansion of the role of the TF in the classroom. It also might encourage graduate students to work on more classes, spreading their resources too thin and leaving undergraduates neglected. Also, despite what graduate students are saying in their push for unions, it is likely that any union would push for a standardized pay system scale that is not based on teaching merit.

Instead of allowing graduate students to unionize, we believe that universities should be more responsive to their legitimate grievances and co-opt some of their suggestions—including a set pay scale that is merit-based and no compulsory teaching for financial aid—to preempt calls for unionization. This solution will improve the plight of graduate students, which will improve sections independently, and allow universities to create a system that best serves the needs of undergraduate education.

Universities should offset these changes, which could encourage professors to offload responsibilities onto TFs, by encouraging professors to be more involved in courses. The burden of running an entire course should not fall on the shoulders of someone who is pursuing a degree and only teaching on the side. Professors are paid to lead and teach courses and should be expected to act accordingly.

The administration-TF relationship at Harvard has not deteriorated yet. But if the environments at our peer institutions are any indication, things have the potential to get much worse. For the good of undergrads and graduates alike, Harvard and other universities must preempt conflict and improve the lots of Teaching Fellows. Their role in our education is, somewhat regrettably, only growing, and so the recognition they receive must as well.