Graduate Students, Employees or Both?

Jeremy Billetdeaux goes to work five days a week. As a part-time instructor at Yale University, he watches students enter his French class unable to string multiple words together, and leave reading novels, writing essays and commenting on movies.

He spends time outside of class, talking with them in his office or over coffee, analyzing their papers and generating grades. At the end of the year, he cooks a dinner for the class in his house.

"Trying to feed 20 students is a job, I'll tell you," he said.

But according to Yale, Billetdeaux is not an employee. He is a student in the graduate program, and his teaching is considered part of his education. It is a traditional position for universities.

This stance is starting to be challenged by graduate students who are frustrated by the lack of recognition they receive and the uncertainty of their futures.

Last week, the National Labor Relations Board and Yale settled a suit stemming from the 1995 grade strike where graduate students continued teaching but withheld grades.

Though the partial strike was ruled illegal by the NLRB, four statements made by faculty members opposing graduate membership in unions may have been "unlawful threats" and were deemed too broad.

The settlement dismissed these charges, and did not rule on whether graduate students are employees — though it forced Yale to publicly post a list of employee rights.

"We were happy to put up a notice because it has no relevance to graduate students," Yale director of public affairs Lawrence Haas said. "We don't think that graduate student unionization is good for higher education. But they certainly have the right to continue to press their case, and we would never interfere with that. We just have a difference of opinion."

But graduate students argue that Yale has attempted to thwart their efforts to unionize. They accuse the university of intimidation tactics including threats by professors to withhold recommendations for jobs.

Though the Graduate Employees and Students Organization is considering appealing the decision — pending the results of a New York University case in which graduate students are suing to be recognized as employees — chair Rebecca Ruquist called the settlement "a great victory."

"Now graduate students can act on their principles without worrying about their careers," she said.

Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

At Princeton, few graduate students were aware of the push toward unionization at Yale, though many admitted difficulties dealing with the Princeton administration on issues ranging from the recent D-Bar dispute, to the future role of the Graduate College, to a lack of access to Tiger tram services that shuttle students and faculty members from the parking lot to their classes.

"I'm not that familiar with the NYU or the Yale cases, but as far as I know, we don't have the same concerns," said Graduate Student Government chair Eszter Hargittai.

"Overall, I think most graduate students are in a different situation at Princeton in that the percentage of grad students here who rely on TA positions for their stipends is much smaller here than at those schools," she said.

But, she added, on issues like post-enrollment — where, after four or five years of schooling, graduate students are denied student status, health care and housing — graduate students have lacked the political leverage to enact real change. "I would say that our biggest concern here is we've been trying to deal for years with the administration and had no help," Hargittai said.

In some cases, such as the Tiger tram, graduate students' concerns were clearly articulated, but administrators failed to take action, she said. "It's definitely an issue that we've been dealing with, again with little response. With no result. No changes in anything. They listened to us, they responded and then nothing changed," she added.

These problems have prompted musings among some about the potential for a union.

"I would theoretically be all in favor of forming a union for graduate students absolutely," Dan Novak GS said. "We're laborers like anybody else, we need protection, we need rights. We don't have anybody that can have power in collective bargaining, we don't have real representation."

"The GSG is a good start absolutely, but we don't have actual leverage over the University in any way. We are only asking, which is not a good position to be in if you actually need any of the things you're asking for," he added.

But Novak said he does not believe this to be a widespread sentiment among other graduate students.

"I don't know whether [unionization] would be a positive thing," said Adrian Banner, chair of the Graduate House Committee. "But if the issue is precisely representation then, yeah, we've had some problem with representation. Is the union idea the best way to do it? I have no idea."

Universities argue that a graduate student union would create an adversarial process that would hinder institutions' abilities to respond rapidly to students' needs.

Administrators claim the relationship between graduate students and faculty would be distorted, that the voice of the graduate student population would be limited by unionization and that it would increase the possibility for protracted litigation that might harm the university community.

"Basically, we feel that the inherently adversarial nature of employee-employer relationships is not appropriate within the university setting," said Yale's Dean of the Graduate College Susan Hockfield. "We feel that it would undermine many aspects of the collegial relationships that underpin graduate education."

Graduate students counter by maintaining that a union would give them a powerful, unified voice to effect change and protect their interests, which are currently at the whim of administrators.

"We are a strong and important labor force at Yale, and I don't see how there's any denying that," Billetdeaux said. "Since we don't have a contract, they can do whatever they want to us. Everything that we have in terms of benefits, salaries, number of courses — it all can be taken away at a moment's notice."

In recent months, graduate students have been more active in pursuing their political agendas, some noted.

"Graduate students do seem a bit keener to protest," said Marc Baldo GS, who was a bartender at the D-Bar. In general, he said, "Graduate students seem to be sort of passive. We're critics and good at writing papers but not necessarily good at doing things."

"I think in actual fact that if graduate students did do some kind of collective action it would be a very powerful force," he added.