Advanced GESO FAQ
(response to administration)
CGEU FAQ:
Basic, Organizing, Legal
GESO Basics
Often, when the topic of GESO is raised, so are a lot of questions. This page is designed to begin answering many of the most typical questions.
It should be stressed, however, that there are many sides to many of these issues. Very few Yale graduate students will be easily satisfied by a single document or by a single answer. The issues raised by unionization at Yale are multifaceted, and are the spark that motivates the conversation and dialogue that defines GESO. The best way to answer all of these questions, therefore, is to talk to the other graduate students in your department, especially those who have formed your department's organizing committee (OC) after wrestling with many of these very issues themselves.
Why does GESO want to be recognized as a union?
This of course is the big question. And there are many different, good reasons to want Yale to recognize our union. As you work through this FAQ, you'll discover many of these reasons. Most basically, they include:
- Yale works because graduate teachers work, and that work should be respected and rewarded.
- Yale will work better when graduate teachers have a more effective voice.
- Teaching assistants should be able to negoatiate their own contract.
- There are concrete issues that really need to be fixed.
- There are structural problems with Universities that can best be fixed by unionizing.
These are some but not all of the reasons. Read on to flesh these out and discover some more.
What would it mean for Yale to recognize GESO as a union?
It would mean that Yale agrees to sit down with GESO and negotiate a contract governing the terms and conditions of working as a Yale teaching assistant (TA). That's it.
What's at stake in the whole "students" vs. "employees" question?
The main issue is whether the protections and rights provided under the "National Labor Relations Act" (NLRA) are provided to those working as teaching assistants (TAs). The primary rights under consideration are the right to organize collectively without fear of threat or intimidation, and the right to a legally recognized union election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Basically, if TAs are employees, then TAs have a right to a union election that Yale cannot ignore.
These rights are extended to all employees in the U.S. (including, for example, primary and secondary school teachers).
So, are graduate teaching assistants "students" or "employees"?
We are both. We serve two functions at this university.
On the one hand, we are graduate students who are pursuing a university degree, who must fulfill academic requirements like coursework and exams, in order to graduate. In this respect, we are students.
On the other hand, we are teachers who are performing the services for which Yale receives substantial sums in undergraduate tuition: We assign grades, we supervise undergraduate labs, we run discussion sections, we hold review sessions, we hold office hours in our own offices, we teach language courses and seminars, we design and teach our own courses, and we supervise senior essays. If there is a shortage of available TA staffing, then the course is cancelled or altered. How could there be a TA "shortage" if being a TA were purely for our own pedagogical benefit? The university works because we work.
Of course, the experience we have working as TAs is sometimes useful for our future academic careers. In just the same way, one's experience as an adjunct or junior faculty member is useful for one's (hopeful) future as a tenured faculty member; this is certainly no argument that adjunct faculty are not employees of the university! While at Yale, we receive our degree and we receive work-experience. Both help prepare us to become university faculty.
Think of it this way: While at Yale, we are both finishing our time as students and beginning our career as teachers. There is an overlapping of roles, but that should not blur the distinction between being a student and being a teacher. The two, after all, are quite different.
We are paid for our work as TAs, although for obvious legal reasons the administration has been seeking creative accounting strategies to make it appear otherwise. Despite these strategies, the IRS considers all TAs as "employees" and so taxes must be withheld on our TA salary.
One final note: It is often asked whether "RAs" (research assistants) are employees. At some state universities, RAs are recognized as employees and do have the right to collective bargaining. However, GESO at Yale has never sought to represent RAs for the purposes of collective bargaining, and the NLRB General Counsel's precendent setting determination that Yale TAs are employees did not include any finding concerning RAs.
How would the collective bargaining process fit into an academic community such as Yale?
Collective bargaining gracefully meshes with the traditions and collegiality of higher education, as suggested by the numerous graduate student and faculty unions already in existence. More than 40% of full-time faculty in the United States work under collective bargaining agreements, and the Association of American University Professors (AAUP), the nation's oldest, largest, and most prestigious academic organization, has endorsed graduate student unionization.
Unionization concerns our relationship as teachers with the institution for which we work, not our relationship as students with our advisors. The administration, and not our individual advisors, determines salary, section sizes, and the allocation of TA positions. Teaching at Yale would improve if we had a say in such decisions, which is precisely what a union will provide.
Why doesn't the University agree to enter into a collective bargaining agreement with its graduate teachers?
It is unsurprising that the administration is resistant to change. Once the administration recognizes GESO, however, union representation and a TA contract will become normal and stable elements of graduate school life at Yale, just as they have at other top graduate schools across the country.
Go to GESO Advanced FAQ (our response to the administration's FAQ)
Go to GESO FAQ for International Students
Go to GESO FAQ for Undergraduates
Also, consider the following general FAQ's out there:
- General FAQ on collective bargaining and labor law
- CGEU FAQ Collection: Basic, Organizing, Legal
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This page was last updated on: January 20, 2000 |
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Graduate Employees and Students Organization |
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