Yale TAs Deserve Right to Unionize

Although we said a year ago on this page that Yale University teaching assistants (TAs) should not be allowed to unionize, recent events, including the National Labor Relations Board's endorsement of their right to unionize, have changed our mind. The TAs are certainly students; otherwise, they would not be at Yale in the first place. However, they are also employees, and they should be given the right to negotiate their salaries and benefits like any other group of employees, so as to prevent the university from taking unfair advantage of them.

Take a look at what has happened to the graduate students over the past year--practices that the NLRB classified as a violation of federal labor law because they intimidated and threatened them. When 250 graduate student TAs instituted a "grade strike," in which grades for fall semester courses were withheld in order to pressure the university into recognizing a union for TAs, the university threatened a ban on future teaching, academic disciplinary hearings, negative letters of recommendation and possible expulsion. To respond, Yale's Graduate Employees and Students Organization (GESO) filed a suit with the NLRB earlier this year; after several months, the national labor board found the university's actions illegal.

We can understand the argument that the Yale TAs are students and not employees; after all, they accept teaching positions as part of their financial aid packages. We realize that there is a danger inherent in allowing graduate students at Yale, who already are in a privileged position and likely on the road to becoming university professors, to make demands on the university. However, the merits of unionization outweigh the drawbacks.

First, without the right to unionize, the graduate students are at the mercy of the Yale administration. Of course, they could go elsewhere, but Yale has many of the best graduate departments in the country. Going elsewhere could mean getting more financial aid and better teaching packages, but it also means that one's Ph.D. might be worth less. Without the ability to argue their position, the TAs must acquiesce to Yale's dictates, even though those decisions may be unfair and punitive.

Second, the graduate students should be able to unionize because they are employees, in fact if not in name. They are students, and students are stereotypically strapped for cash, but many of these students are in their 30s, married and with children. They could be making money to support their families if they took a starting job at a consulting company or a publishing house, but they are instead choosing to contribute to the furthering of knowledge, and they should not be penalized for that.

We hope that the NLRB's proposed formal complaint against Yale will convince the university to comply with the labor board's demands; if not, we would like to see the case reach an administrative law judge, because a ruling in favor of the TAs could set a nationwide precedent. Especially in the wake of last week's strikes at the University of California's three largest campuses--Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Diego--the decision on Yale could mean more than a pay raise for a few hundred graduate students in New Haven. It could set an example for fair labor practices within academia everywhere.