Mounting an attack on the status quo

By Siobhan Peiffer

At his first meeting as Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) Chair, Antony Dugdale, GRD '99, put the Assembly's mission on the agenda.

"Do you want our meetings to focus on the nitty-gritty issues," he asked, "or do we want to be focused on the big picture... the graduate school and what our place in it is?" The Assembly officially represents students of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences to the Administration, but it can do no more than discuss and comment on policy. Should the GSA keep speaking up on specific issues, or push to broaden its role? "What is our voice?" Dugdale asked the assembled representatives.

GSA members, Graduate Employees and Students Organization (GESO) leaders, and Graduate School Dean Susan Hockfield all agree: graduate students need to be heard. But just how the Administration should hear them continues to be a pressing question for both GESO members and Assembly representatives. As the year-old Assembly looks to nail down its role, and GESO pushes for membership while awaiting a key legal decision, both groups are revising different tactics to push for real policy-changing power for graduate students.

Put it in writing

GESO's immediate goal is for the University to negotiate a written and binding contract with its graduate student teachers, a change that 1,053 grad students supported in a petition last spring. Though the Assembly has passed no resolution to support or oppose the petition, Dugdale, a former GESO organizer, agrees with the initiative, and calls for the Administration to "negotiate with grad students in some capacity"-whether in contract negotiations or by granting the Assembly official policy-making power.

But thus far, the Administration has made it clear that it will not sign any written agreement. University President Richard Levin, GRD '74, returned the spring petition without comment, and the Administration has since refused to discuss the issue further with GESO leaders. Hockfield calls a written and binding agreement unnecessary. She points out that upon acceptance, every student receives a letter outlining Yale's expectations of him or her. "'Written and binding' is a union term," she said, "but every student comes to Yale understanding what his or her financial package will be."

GESO wants graduate student responsibilities spelled out so that students will not be surprised by changes to their section assignments or cheated by unequal pay. GESO Chair Rachel Sulkes, GRD '01, maintains that unless the terms of employment are set down in writing, graduate students could be asked to "carry an even greater burden" of Yale's teaching load.

GESO fears changes based on 1997's Kutzinksi report, which recommended mandatory graduate teaching and separation of stipends and teaching responsibilities. Sulkes pointed to changes in the French and Spanish departments that make teaching mandatory for Ph. D. candidates as a sign to things to come. But French Director of Graduate Studies Edwin Duval said the changes were made to reflect what was already happening in the department, not as a result of the Kutzinksi report.

The Administration is wary of a contract that would limit its ability to make constructive changes in teaching requirements-decisions that are made on a departmental level to suit different disciplines' needs. "It's important that students know what they can expect when they come to Yale," Hockfield said. "But it is also important that we have the kind of flexibility our current system allows."

GESO leaders maintain that "flexibility" means that "grad students are seen as a way to create a buffer between [economic] reality and the staffing needs of the University," Sulkes said. GESO has not decided, however, on the next step in pursuit of a written agreement; Sulkes said the group is waiting for further Yale action, and that any future initiative will have to wait for full membership approval at GESO's yet-to-be-scheduled meeting.

Similarly, Dugdale would like the Assembly to "have the right to negotiate an agreement," and said that he "remains hopeful" that the University will agree to negotiations. But when asked how grad students or GSA in particular might effect such a change, Dugdale responded, "I have no idea."

Different tacks

Pushing for such structural change has historically been GESO's domain, while the GSA has focused on nuts-and-bolts problems. "We've concentrated on more specific policy areas," former GSA Chair Glenn Adamson, GRD '01, said. Departmental representatives bring constituent concerns, which range this year from academic freedom to vending machine prices, to the Assembly, which discusses, drafts, and approves recommendations to the Administration. Hockfield meets every other week with the GSA steering committee and plans to meet with the full Assembly soon.

Usually, after the GSA makes a recommendation, it "negotiates to make the resolution a reality," Adamson explained. Negotiations are verbal, non-binding, and dependent on good faith. Last year, the Assembly recommended higher pay for some teaching fellows teaching more than one section, which Hockfield has promised to study and redress, and pushed for multiple changes in library usage and health care, the most important of which, according to Adamson, have since been made policy.

To this point, GSA's tack has been "demonstrating that we're mature and trustworthy," Adamson said, thereby "persuading the Administration of our usefulness." Hockfield seems already convinced. "I think it's really important that the GSA work closely with me," she said. "I think they can play an important role in graduate school policy." Despite her enthusiasm, Hockfield doesn't believe that the body needs more formal power, pointing out that the Assembly is young and still discovering the extent of its influence.

GSA disagrees. Adamson was frustrated by the Assembly's lack of influence last year when, for example, changes to disciplinary procedure were made without GSA recommendation. Though "we were able to comment" after the fact, Adamson said, he cited the episodes as evidence that the Assembly "needs policy-making power." The Administration remained opposed. "Administrators refuse to talk about it in any mature terms," Adamson said. "It's the most frustrating thing about being in the Assembly."

GESO leaders say that such refusal has "consistently demonstrated" that outside pressure is necessary. "'The Administration has really been recalcitrant," Sulkes said. Even Adamson, who praises Hockfield's support for the Assembly, said "The fact that they're not willing to invest the Assembly with any real power [is] baffling." If they did, he predicted, "They would probably have no union problems." Until such power is granted, Adamson feels that GESO's oppositional stance in necessary. Sulkes agreed that if the GSA had real power, "this would be a very different situation right now."

But neither she nor Dugdale foresees a time when a powerful Assembly would make unionization unnecessary. "It's hard to predict what would happen in the future," Dugdale said. "All I can say with confidence is that right now, GESO's push for unionization and the Assembly's form of representation are both necessary elements in graduate students having a voice."

Working together

Acting alone poses problems for both groups. On the GSA, several departments are missing representatives, and some have no representatives at all because no graduate students are willing to serve. Both Adamson and Dugdale say that filling these openings is a top priority. And while GESO refuses to release membership numbers, it has decided not to charge dues during the current membership drive in order to attract more members.

Combined GESO/GSA action represents the greatest possible number of graduate students and the best way to realize change. After research and discussion, the two groups both pushed for heath care coverage for all Ph. D. students, a reform which Hockfield instituted over the summer. To Adamson, this showed that informed cooperation got results; to Sulkes and GESO organizer Scott Saul, GRD '99, it showed that GESO could pursue specific policy changes while agitating for structural change.

But while GESO leaders celebrate policy victories, such advances make them all the more adamant to set these changes in a binding contract. "Even when we're gotten great things, we don't have any way of actually securing it," former GESO Chair Michelle Stephens, GRD '98, said. "That has remained pretty constant, and it continues to be the main concern."

The legal battle

This concern continues to lead GESO to the courtroom. Currently, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is reviewing the dismissal of a complaint that Yale had violated the National Labor Relations Act in its reactions to the 1995 graduate students grade strike. Michael O. Miller, administrative law judge for the Hartford region of the NLRB, based his dismissal on the fact that graduate students continued to do some of their work while striking. The reasoning left the crux of the original controversy-whether graduate students are employees-untouched."

"He didn't decide the question of employee status," Richard McCracken, a San Francisco based labor lawyer acting as GESO's counsel, said. "He didn't need to." GESO appealed the decision to the Washington, D.C. division of the NLRB, which reviews briefs without hearing new arguments. But it is unlikely that the Washington board will state directly if it considers graduate students employees, according to Jonathan Kreisberg, a regional attorney for the NLRB. Rather, they will dismiss the case or remand it for further trial in the Hartford division.

Yale's legal position remains unchanged. John Clune, associate general counsel for Yale, said that "employee status could become an issue again in the case," and that if the case was remanded, Yale would complete its arguments both the specific action of the grad strike and employee status in general. GESO and McCracken both pointed out that the last governmental decision on the issue, NLRB's conclusion that it should file a complaint against Yale, considered graduate students employees. Based on this, Sulkes stated that GESO is considering whether it will petition the NLRB for a union election, forcing the issue on campus. "There's a very strong chance than an election will be ordered," McCracken said, since the Hartford office has "already concluded that [grad students] are employees."

But Kreisberg is not so sure. Though petitioning for election is a process separate from the current trial, Kreisberg said that the Hartford NLRB might hold the petition question pending the Washington NLRB decision. "I have no idea of the most likely route," he said. "We would literally have to cross that bridge when we come to it." When asked about the possibility of such a petition, Clone said, "Yale's position will not change."

Getting results

Sulkes said that legal results are less important than the realization "that we do get the Administration to move when it feels intense pressure." She sees the "flurry of activity in the graduate school," including GSA's and Yale's efforts to reach out, as a result of that pressure.

Whether that pressure will push representation further is still, of course, undecided. At Wednesday's Assembly meeting, the question of "voice" was left as a balancing act: keep working on quality-of-life issues while defining and publicizing the Assembly's role.

That's an agenda that GESO could support. "When grad students get together, it doesn't matter which body exactly it is," Saul explained. "Collective action by grad students is what gets results." Or so they hope.

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