Why? Because they are employees!

Both Inside Higher Ed and the Chroni News Blog are reporting on a bill dropped by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Representative George Miller (D-CA) that would clarify the National Labor Relations Act so that graduate teaching and research assistants at private colleges and universities are included as employees under the Act.  This legislation is, of course, in response to the 2004 ruling by the anti-union, Bush-appointed National Labor Relations Board that determined graduate TA's and RA's were not employees. 

AFT and other unions have been working to reverse that decision ever since, because  . . . well, because the Board was wrong. 

More on that after the jump.

Surely, all the private institutions that have been spending millions of dollars to stop graduate employees from organizing on their campuses will again jump up and yell, “No fair!” Of course, when the NLRB ruled in 2000 that grad employees had the right to bargain at private universities (in that case, at NYU), those campuses bought, er um, won a big victory in 2004, when the NLRB took it all back with their Brown University decision.

Well, we’ve heard all the aruguments before—and we exposed the flawed logic in Recognition and Respect:  Standards of Good Practice in the Employment of Graduate Employees.  Here is what we said then, right before the Board made their (completely politically driven rather than factually based) decision.

Some people, however, argue that graduate teaching and research assistants should not be considered employees. Those putting forward such arguments, most notably university administrators and trustees, contend that the teaching and research that graduate students do should be considered training and a part of their development as students. This argument is the basis for several ongoing legal challenges against graduate employee unions (who have fairly won union recognition elections or the right to elections) by institutional administrations and trustees (who are disputing the graduate employees' right to organize).

These claims continue despite the fact that both federal and state entities have recognized graduate teaching and research assistants as employees. For example, the U.S. Department of Education's definition of this group indicates that teaching and research assistants are distinct because they are "employed." In addition, state labor boards have repeatedly recognized the rights of graduate employees to organize a union under the protection of state statutes. More recently, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) also has come to the same conclusion for private institutions of higher education, although elite private research institutions continue to pour untold amounts of money into the appeal process to fight graduate employee unionization at the NLRB and in the courts.

Beyond the legal and institutional definitions, the argument that graduate teaching and research assistants are students, not employees, and that their work is training as part of their student experience is problematic on at least two levels. First, graduate employees are responsible for a critical university function: undergraduate education. To suggest that they are not qualified to teach courses, run discussion groups, lead labs, etc.--that is, that they are untrained apprentices who should not be considered employees--is both demeaning and contradictory. Institutions want graduate teaching and research assistants to be valued employees when it comes to undergraduate education, but want them to be students when it comes to  unionization. Second, the notion that employees learn on the job should not affect their employee status. There is no doubt that graduate employees develop as better teachers and researchers while working for colleges and universities. This should be true of any employee in a new position. All employees should be offered mentoring, training and professional development to allow them to develop whether they are full- or part-time, brand new to the profession or experienced. However, they are still considered employees from the moment they begin providing a service to an employer in exchange for wages.

Ultimately, what perhaps is most telling is that if graduate employees did not do the teaching and other work they do for universities, those institutions would necessarily have to hire more part-time or full-time faculty to cover courses, discussion sections and labs that graduate employees currently cover. No one disputes the fact that faculty are employees. To suggest that one person doing a job is an employee while another person doing the same job is not an employee is simply untenable.

Yup--I think that still holds up.  But of course, rational answers will not be enough to move this legislation.  Calls, emails and letters to your members of Congress is what is needed.  Time to go to work.