Graduate students spring Adminstration leak

As Yale attempts to distinguish between workers and students, GESO cries persecution.

By Melissa Barton

JULIA TIERNAN/YH At a grad student town meeting on Wed., Nov. 18, students, faculty, and administrators got a chance to speak up on GESO's predicament.

Yale's teaching assistants think the University is out to get them. In a press conference on Tues., Nov. 17, the Graduate Employee and Student Organization (GESO) revealed memos from Yale administrators, "leaked" by anonymous faculty members that the students believe "expose a campaign by Yale administrators to destroy the union," according to GESO chair Rachel Sulkes, GRD '01.

GESO is not actually a union, and its members insist this is because Yale wants to keep them from organizing. On Wed., Nov. 18, the students, along with administrators and faculty, gathered at a town meeting to discuss communication within the graduate school community. The meeting, organized by the Graduate Student Assembly (GSA), focused on the memos and the possible consequences of GESO unionization.

The teaching assistants asserted that a memo dated Wed., Aug. 19 from Provost Alison Richard conflicts with another memo from General Counsel Dorothy Robinson. Both memos were addressed to Graduate School Dean Susan Hockfield.

Richard's letter, which calls GESO's legal case "a thin legal fiction," explains that graduate students paid by the University to teach are still primarily students. "If students were to be treated as employees--and faculty members as their supervisors--under the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), a universe of pervasive and intrusive external regulation and regulatory process would apply, burdening and restricting the essentially dynamic and flexible relationships of an educational system that has long been in place," Richard wrote.

But Robinson's memo, which the graduate students saw as validation of their cause, explains the legal relevance of the NLRA to the graduate students' case. The lawyer lists the types of expression which constitute unfair labor practices under the act. Though these include threats, interrogation, promises, and spying on students, Robinson concludes that "it is unlikely that faculty would engage in threats, interrogations, promises, and surveillance even if such activites were not proscribed by the NLRA."

"We welcome Robinson's letter. We do not, however, welcome the Provost's memo," Sulkes said at Tuesday's conference. In response, however, Richard asserted that rather than being "in conflict with one another," the two missives "are consistent and complementary."

At Wednesday's meeting, Sulkes cited Richard's letter as an attempt by the Yale Administration "to use these distortions to incite faculty opinion against graduate student teachers. Robinson's memo reveals that the Administration no longer has confidence in its legal position that graduate teaching assistants are students and not employees," Sulkes said.

GESO even has some support from the Yale faculty. The memos, according to American Studies Professor Michael Dunning, are "simply the latest installment of the Administration's gradual realization that they don't have a leg to stand on."

Siri Carpenter, GRD '01, an organizer for GESO, added, "The letters suggest that Yale is not confident of its case against unionization and has resorted to distributing misinformation and propaganda as a last resort. I think that in a university that's supposed to stand for light and truth, that's just shameful."

Richard believes her statements are being misinterpreted by GESO. "In a climate in which all of us are calling for open debate, I am dismayed that the honest expression of my views should be so profoundly miscast," she said.

Richard's memo argues that the institution of a supervisor-employee relationship between faculty and graduate students will result in strained relations. "Under the NLRA, unfair labor practice charges against the faculty and the University could arise out of any act that students could perceive and then claim is based on their activities as union members, or simply as employees," she wrote. "Such matters as poor grades, level of stipend awarded, non-selection for departmental honors, the contents of recommendations, disapproval of theses or thesis proposals, could all become contested [by an official union]."

GESO has unsuccessfully campaigned for official status for seven years now, but Sulkes, a teaching assistant in the German department, is still hoping the Administration will "voluntarily recognize GESO" as an organized labor union and negotiating party.

Nevertheless, University President Richard Levin, GRD '74, still firmly supports the University's traditionally strong stance against student unionization. "[Graduate students] are here as students principally," he said recently. "The notion that they are workers and bosses undermines their status as students. The existence of a labor union would have a negative impact on the quality of education."

But many graduate students still believe they serve two important functions at Yale. "The question isn't so much whether graduate students are students or teachers--we play a dual role here," Carpenter said. "We're seeking union recognition on the basis of our role as teachers and employees of the University."

Wednesday's meeting was conducted by a seven-member panel composed of student leaders from GESO, GSA, and the Graduate and Professional Students Senate, along with Richard, Hockfield, political science Professor Rogers Smith, and psychology Professor Mahzarin Banaji. The panelists gave brief statements summarizing their opinions and concerns. The floor was then opened to discussion with faculty members and students in the audience.

Hockfield asserted that the Administration is cooperating with the GSA to "give graduate students a voice." She said she believes that the individual voices of students are more effective than the collective voice of a union would be. Hockfield also emphasized that, as evidenced by the graduate school's current work to alleviate "perceived injustices and inequities" in graduate student teaching, Yale has "mechanisms for negotiation already in place," making a union unnecessary.

Many faculty members voiced concerns about the implications of unionization, asking questions about strikes, union dues, and the loss of individuality. But Sulkes emphasized that whether to participate in the union would be "a decision for every graduate student to make."

Banaji argued against GESO, stating that graduate students aren't workers but instead constitute "a privileged class" at a university. "It is wrong to blur that distinction simply to gain an advantage," she said. Banaji also encouraged the students to think about teaching in a more serious manner, citing a memo from GESO in which undergraduate instruction is referred to as "the non-academic work of graduate students."

English professor Annabelle Patterson charged GESO with poor foresight. "It is naïve to propose that the relationship between students and faculty wouldn't be changed" she said of unionization, further stressing that GESO is attempting "a move we know the faculty deplores." She cited the fact that a majority of the faculty supported Levin's hardline response to the teaching assistant grade strike of 1995. During the strike, the University threatened to alter students' recommendations and mar their academic records.

Smith said the students' claims were legally farfetched. "It's at best ambigious whether or not they are employees with the right to organize," he said.

Jewish Chaplain Rabbi James Ponet, who moderated the discussion, emphasized that the meeting signalled the start of a more open dialogue between graduate students and the Adminstration. "The meeting is only a beginning of what will be a long process," he said. "This is meant to be a clearing of the air."

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