Yes. UE was formed in the 1930s by independent local unions committed to uniting workers regardless of craft, age, sex, nationality, race, creed, or political beliefs. UE has a long history of fighting for civil rights, and in 1950 dedicated itself to ending racial discrimination in the electrical manufacturing industry. If your department or funding source pays more than the minimum that is negotiated in a contract, you will still be able to collect the additional pay and benefits. Rather than implementing a top-down organizational structure where strategy, policies and finances are controlled nationally, UE operates as a federation of independent locals that make their own decisions. I'm curious if you have any specific cases in mind where non-union schools have increased compensation/benefits/etc. This would seem to reduce the leverage of grad students at non-union schools and reduce the incentive of the school to match the unionized school's benefits. Yes. In a 2016 filing from Colombia graduate students the NLRB ruled that graduate student workers employed at private universities are entitled to protections under the National Labor Relations Act, including the right to form a union for the purposes of collective bargaining. Why YOU should join a Grad Union As an individual employee, you have limited leverage when negotiating with the Northwestern administration. Are international graduate students eligible to be in the bargaining unit? I don't have first-hand knowledge of specific details, but I am aware that at my university the graduate student union has successfully negotiated items like: I have also been told that they negotiate assistantship salaries and minimum and maximum working loads for assistants, and that the union will represent assistants should a grievance arise. Are graduate workers legally considered employees? When privileged Ivy-Leaguers co-opt the strategy in pursuit of marginal improvements in their working conditions, they exhibit a lack of social awareness and invite mockery from the political right. Collect signed union cards of at least 30% of graduate workers, Submit the cards to the NLRB to call for a certification election, Graduate workers vote in the election run by the NLRB to decide to certify NUGW-UE or not, If a majority of votes cast in the election choose to certify NUGW-UE, then the union is legally recognized and Northwestern must engage in good-faith bargaining. Tom's NRSC donation followed prior donations to GOP senators, including $5,600 to former Georgia Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler in 2019, $5,400 to Sen. David Perdue, also of Georgia, that same . Tuition payment deferment so that earned stipends can pay tuition fees not covered by tuition waivers. Yale graduate students face far fewer challenges than students at other universities: they are far better positioned to land lucrative positions (in and outside of academia) than are their colleagues at other schools, and PhD students are generally offered as much as$35,000-$40,000 per yearplus tuition (including payment for summer research). There is a grad student unionization effort at my school (USA) and it will come to a vote soon. How to avoid conflict of interest when dating another employee in a matrix management company? In 1945, UE demanded and won equal pay for women. Any realistic estimate would find that process of unionizing and negotiating a collective bargaining agreement would take 23 years. GLO was brought into being by the efforts of activists grads involved with Stand Up for Graduate Students Employees (SUGSE), which was established in 2014 to advocate for graduate student-workers. UChicago Grad Students Fought for a Union for 15 Years. Now - Truthout Major cases (such as a potentialColumbia Universityreversal) can also take years to resolve, with both parties engaging in extensive and time-consuming procedural maneuvers. In 1995, after much research and discussion, the GEO membership voted to affiliate with the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) and its parent union . MIT grad workers recently won a landslide union election, and our colleagues at UChicago recently voted to join UE. We believe that "Joining a student union and participating in it" will be at odds with the strong academic partnership that is formed between students and mentors and that represents a central element of the graduate student educational experience. What are the pros and cons of well compensated STEM graduate students joining a union? During this time, the National Labor Relations Act requires the employer and the union to engage in good faith negotiations over terms and conditions of employment, which are often called mandatory subjects of bargaining. This duty to bargain in good faith means the parties must meet, confer, and consider each others proposals. To see our guiding principles, check out ourmission statement, and to see NUGW's current campaign priorities check out our platform! Can consciousness simply be a brute fact connected to some physical processes that dont need explanation? OUR VOICE This week, graduate assistants will be voting on whether to unionize. If you deem those. Collective bargaining can take months and sometimes more than a year, especially if the two sides are negotiating their first agreement together. The typical PhD student pays no tuition. To grad students who have unionized, is it worth it? This can happen in two ways: first, 30% of workers sign cards or a petition to form a union and submit it to the NLRB there will be a general referendum on union formation with a simple majority of voters deciding the result, alternatively the employer may voluntarily recognize a union as representing a majority of workers. However, no school with a graduate student union pays its students better than Princeton already does without a union. We will not know until a labor agreement is negotiated and ratified. Both processes take broad support from the workforce, so involving every worker as much as possible is essential. As workers at a private university, our legal right to unionize is determined by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). To understand this possibility, its helpful to have some background. NUGW maintains local, grassroots, democratic power to make decisions about what our union does. This additional power allows workers to secure more substantial improvement to their workplace. Exclusivity means that the University cannot work with any other union or organization, including Graduate Council, on matters affecting wages, hours, or working conditions for graduate students in the certified unit. Graduate students generally only take about six years to finish their degrees, meaning that only those in their early graduate years today stand to see improved wages and working conditions through a union. Here are some things to consider Don't let union-busting efforts fool you. What topics are not required to be part of a collective bargaining agreement? For frequently asked questions about the upcoming election, visit the election FAQ page here. Generalise a logarithmic integral related to Zeta function. Decisions that are essential to the employers operation or that only indirectly affect compensation, benefits, and working conditions would be considered permissive subjects of bargaining. Each side will develop contract proposals and strategies based on what they believe are their best interests. Yes. UE is run by the rank-and-file, meaning the members run the union. During the last years of the Obama administration, the Boards Democratic majority overruled a number of holdings by Republican-dominated Boards, including the Reagan-era Boards interpretation of what constitutes a joint employer and the Bush Boards refusal to protect employees using theircompany email systemsfor organizing purposes. In short, graduate students could decide not to join the union or pay dues, but they cannot opt out of being represented by the union and may be required to pay an agency fee to the union. Once again, its not possible to know for sure. Is an individual graduate student who disagrees with a provision in the contract still bound by it? Reddit, Inc. 2023. The right to union representation does not apply to students in their capacity as students and therefore does not apply to meetings regarding academic matters, including those involving academic evaluation or assessment, determination of academic good standing, completion of non-employment-related degree or program requirements, or progress towards the degree. The below FAQ provides information and considerations about graduate education and unionization. UAW 2865 is the union that represents all 36,000+ Academic Student EmployeesTeaching Assistants, Graduate Student Researchers, Graduate Student Instructors, Tutors, and Readersacross the University of California system. We have the chance to win a legally recognized union at Northwestern through an NLRB-facilitated election on January 10th and 11th. With such weighty matters available to fill our hours of national conversation, seemingly smaller developments have been frequently denied the attention they deserve. How should I deal with becoming discouraged as a graduate student? Permissive subjects of bargaining are those items over which bargaining is neither prohibited nor compelled, i.e., neither party is required to bargain over a permissive subject and the parties cannot pursue permissive subjects of bargaining to the point of impasse. If you sign up to become a member you can select no-dues, or voluntary dues at any of the three levels, and at any later point can change your level of dues contribution. Should grad students unionize? : r/GradSchool - Reddit What is the smallest audience for a communication that has been deemed capable of defamation? Here's my two cents: Universities/Academia have a lot of problems, with many administrators far removed from research/university classrooms. In August of 2016, the NLRBfoundinColumbiaUniversitythat graduate students at private universities were eligible to join unions. Only if the University and the union specifically bargain for such flexibility and include it in the contract, or if the union consents to the change on an ad hoc basis. The grad union that was being proposed at my school wanted to smooth that out in that everybody gets treated more equally. There is also a need-based childcare stipend of $2,000 per year that student parents can apply for on an annual basis. I went to graduate school in mathematics at a university with a TA union. Graduate student employees filed a petition for a union election on May 8, 2017. http://harvardgradunion.org/ rev2023.7.24.43543. NUGW is run by and for graduate student-workers, so we represent the goals of graduate student-workers! First, the nature of unionization clearly interferes and works at cross-purposes with the close mentor-mentee relationships between faculty and graduate students. Graduate students will alternate between being in the bargaining unit and out of the bargaining unit based on the NLRBs definition of who is in the bargaining unit. The University also cannot negotiate directly with any student who is in the union on any matter affecting wages, hours, or working conditions except as permitted by a collective bargaining agreement (often called a CBA or labor agreement) between the University and the union. All rights reserved. Unions formed with such goals may also be worth fighting for. Line integral on implicit region that can't easily be transformed to parametric region. In 2021 a proposed rule reversing this decision was withdrawn, helping to secure Northwestern graduate students right to form a union for the coming years. The good news is that federal student loan borrowers have a host of repayment options they can look at. The amount of required teaching can vary from student to student as it is dependent upon the nature of the program and the training required. Unions use dues to cover the costs of negotiating a contract, contract administration, and grievance resolution. First contracts usually take longer to reach than subsequent contracts. If you are a graduate worker seeking to help win our upcoming election: The stipulated election agreement (STIP) between lawyers representing NUGW-UE and Northwestern has been signed! Strongly agree with this. It was a good way to get to know your fellow graduate students. All resolutions and policies, including setting union dues, are voted on by members of UE locals at a bi-annual convention. While anti-union administrators often invoke the image of bureaucratic institutions out of touch with the cherished customs of a workplace, this is really not how unions work at all. Why Join a Graduate Union? (FAQ) - Northwestern University Graduate Workers Millions of borrowers today are saddled with student debt. The Management and Academic rights of the University include, but are not limited to, the right to: Establish, plan, direct and control the Universitys organizational structure, missions, programs, objectives, services, activities, resources and priorities; Establish and administer procedures, rules and regulations, and direct and control University operations, including the subcontracting of all or any portion of any operations; Alter, extend or discontinue existing equipment, facilities, and location of operations; Recruit, hire, appoint, assign, schedule, transfer, train, supervise, or evaluate Student Employees; Determine or modify the number, qualifications, scheduling, responsibilities and assignments of Student Employees; Establish, maintain, modify or enforce standards of education, performance, conduct, order and safety, and to establish and revise disciplinary policies to address violations of these standards; Evaluate, determine the content of evaluations, and determine the processes and criteria by which Student Employees performance is evaluated; Establish and require Student Employees to observe University rules and regulations; Establish or modify the academic calendars, including holidays and holiday scheduling; Determine who is taught, what is taught, how such content is taught and who delivers the instruction; Determine in its sole discretion all matters relating to faculty hiring and tenure, admissions and appointments, admission standards, student matriculation, graduation standards, assessment of student work and grades, and determinations as to students academic progress; Establish tuition, fees, and charges of general application; Determine matters involving financial aid, including, but not limited to, recipients of financial aid and the terms of financial aid; Decide matters related to research methodology and materials; Decide matters related to grants including, but not limited to, application, selection, funding, administration, usage, accountability and termination; Decide whether to create, eliminate, combine, or modify academic, outreach, service and research programs; Decide matters related to housing for Student Employees covered by this Agreement; Exercise sole authority on all decisions involving academic matters, and academic standards. The election will happen onTuesday January 10th and Wednesday January 11th. UE provides valuable expertise in financial, legal, and organizing assistance, as well as a wide network of contacts in similar campaigns, including MIT's Graduate Student Union, Indiana Universities's Graduate Workers Coalition, U-Chicago's Graduate Student Union, and John Hopkins' Teachers and Researchers United. Employees who choose to join the union and become members are required to pay union dues. I suspect thousands of students have never gone to a students' union gathering. Is there an equivalent of the Harvard sentences for Japanese? Join the CAT. Tuition rates vary by division and school and by year in the program: in 202223 tuition costs between $49,734 and $70,056 annually in the first four years of the PhD. When I was a graduate student, getting the chance to lecture was an opportunity---at some schools it's one of the few chances to get that experience while still in grad school. Will union representation impact grant-funded graduate students differently than non-grant-funded graduate students? academia.stackexchange.com/questions/89955/, Stack Overflow at WeAreDevelopers World Congress in Berlin. As a result, the University has recognized GSU-UE as the exclusive bargaining agent of a group of graduate students who provide instructional and research services. | Truthout News | Economy & Labor UChicago Grad Students Fought for a Union for 15 Years. After a contract is ratified the protections and guarantees earned by the workers will remain in place for the duration of the contract. And second, if the ruling is destined to be overturned, should unionization drives proceed anyway? The reason unions do help is because unions have painfully found out that what is gained at the bargaining table can be taken away at the state capitals very easily. I personally feel heard and treated well already, so I am inclined to oppose it. Unions at some schools have more bargaining power than others, and at some schools the field is already more level than others. I'm primarily interested in student-body-wide benefits/detriments, instead of student-specific or faculty/administrator-specific claims (e.g. Graduate student employee unionization, or academic student employee unionization, refers to labor unions that represent students who are employed by their college or university to teach classes, conduct research and perform clerical duties. The state of graduate student employee unions - Economic Policy Institute According to the National Labor Relations Board, grants you the right to organize for better working conditions. FAQs about Graduate Student Unionization. Since the Board is considered to have some policymaking authority, its members are less constrained than judges are in seeking what they believe to be the right outcomes. Together, these conditions leave the Board less than fully committed to its previous rulings. Perhaps more importantly, a hunger strike seems to be an inappropriate, tone-deaf tactic given the situation. Can the University make exceptions to contract provisions to accommodate the individual needs of individual graduate students? However, amidst this frenzy of activity, few have explicitly considered two crucial questions: first, will the NLRBs ruling inColumbia Universitylast? PhD students have access to optional dental and vision insurance plans. Recently, graduate workers at peer institutions of Northwestern such as Harvard, Georgetown, and Brown University have all won pay raises, reduced costs of insurance, and new grievance procedures through their union contracts. This means that any student funded by an NIH grant needed to find an additional source of non governmental funding. But of course, I don't have any specific cases in mind so I can't take my own advice! It can order wrongfully terminated employees to be reinstated with backpay, but it cannot fine or otherwise sanction employers for their unfair labor practices. I second (and upvoted) Nates comment below. The only positive news for graduate student organizers is that a reversal may take some time. First, they should forthrightly acknowledge that manycurrentgraduate students are unlikely to gain much from the process of unionization. You might look at how it shook out. What will be negotiated at the bargaining table? To cover the cost the PI slice of the overhead pie was reduced. In more recent times, UE has fully committed to organizing grad workers across the country. Unions do help some politicians, this is true -- but it isn't with dues money. Scan this QR code to download the app now. @NateEldredge I actually had an experience that is consistent with what StrongBad suggests. A decertification petition cannot be filed with the NLRB during the one-year period that follows the initial certification of the union, and if the University and the union reach agreement on a labor contract, the contract would bar the filing of a decertification petition until a 30-day window near the end of the contract term. Due in large part to the involvement of NUGW, the fee was eventually dropped. The National Labor Relations Act requires employers and unions to bargain collectively over wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employmentconcepts that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the federal courts have interpreted broadly. UPS CEO's Political Donations Boost Anti-Union Republicans Workers' rights advocates say unionizing is almost always worth the effort. Even at its trimmed-down size, the 3,700-member unit would, if certified, become the nation's largest new private-sector union since 2018, when over 5,000 graduate students won their union at . All rights reserved. In no case did the union prevent a TA from being paid better, etc. I think the main effect was to level off graduate student compensation across disciplines -- so, the union was apparently a great boon to those in the humanities, but I heard that compensation for math TA's would likely be higher if not for the union. Oftentimes when the party in control of the White House switches, the NLRB relitigates old disputes. Because it can impact your career and student experience now, and after college. Meriwest CU, 3.5% on $5000. Does the University of Chicago have a graduate student union? NUGW-UE is currently engaged in a recognition campaign, with an upcoming election. Unions give workers a democratic voice in the workplace. Graduate Labor Organization (GLO) is a grassroots organization of graduate student-workers at Brown University. The parties are obligated to negotiate a new contract only at the expiration of the previous contract. Should graduate students decide they would like to remove the union, they will need to file a decertification petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). In negotiations when the parties cannot reach agreement after engaging in good faith bargaining, in general the employer makes its final proposal, often called a last, best, and final offer. In response, the union normally will ask its members to vote on the proposal. Although no one can predict what might be included in a management rights clause, it is helpful to consider the management rights clause that Columbia University negotiated with the United Auto Workers, which represents graduate students at Columbia.