Notable Quotables
This page collects some of the quotes that are being amassed through the union drive at Yale or across the country. If you have something to add to this page, email us!
"As a policy matter, we do not believe that the fact that house staff are also students warrants depriving them of collective-bargaining rights, or withholding the statutory obligations attendant to those rights."
NLRB decision in "Boston Medical" 11-26-1999
"Ample evidence exists here to support our finding that interns, residents and fellows fall within the broad definition of 'employee'...notwithstanding that a purpose of their being at the hospital may also be, in part, educational. That house staff may also be students does not thereby change the evidence of their 'employee' status."
NLRB decision in "Boston Medical" 11-26-1999
"As 'junior professional associates', interns, residents, and fellows bear a close analogy to apprentices in the traditional sense. It has never been doubted that apprentices are statutory employees eligible to vote in elections with their more experienced colleagues [citations deleted]. Nor does the fact that interns, residents and fellows are continually acquiring new skills negate their status as employees."
NLRB decision in "Boston Medical" 11-26-1999
"After 71 days of formal hearing, involving approximately 200 witnesses, there is simply no credible evidence in this record to support a finding that mentor relationships will deteriorate if the students in question are found to be employees under the Act."
Decision of the California Public Employment Relations Board, 12-11-1998
"The concerns of UC administrators about a negative impact on student/professor relations are misplaced."
Mike Rothstein, contract administrator for the University of Wisconsin, where collective bargaining now exists for TAs. As quoted in Metro Santa Cruz, 8-7-1998
Collective Bargaining in the Academy
Collective bargaining for TAs "will not only help develop a more harmonious and cooperative labor management relationship, but it will affirmatively encourage excellence within the University."
Decision of the California Public Employment Relations Board, 12-11-1998
"Yale is better than a democracy"
Graduate Dean Susan Hockfield, in response to a question whether Yale is or should be democratic.
July, 1998
"I will not attend a forum ... to discuss GESO's platform of ideas."
Graduate Dean Susan Hockfield, in written response to a written request by over 200 graduate students to discuss simply the issues of teaching equity, dissertation fellowships in the sciences, housing, and English as a second language. February 3, 1999
"Are there any conditions under which you would agree to negotiate with graduate students?"
"Well, who would do the negotiating?"
"Let's say that were totally up to you."
"Oh, well, I don't think that would ever be appropriate."
Yale President Richard Levin, in a meeting with the 3 GESO officers about a petition signed by over 1000 graduate students requesting negotiations toward a written and binding agreement. April, 1998
"The answer to your question is no."
Yale Provost Allison Richard, at a Town Meeting attended by over 400 graduate students, in response to the question whether there is any form of negotiations which the Yale administration would willingly accept if requested by the majority of graduate students. November 18, 1998
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"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 . . . As a legal matter, a faculty member might not be fully free to talk about his or her views with respect to propriety of the union's positions, its collective actions or its threats of action . . . These restrictions on what could be legally discussed with an "an employee" would strike at the freedom of expression central to the whole conception of the university as an intellectual community . . . My fear is that we would all become less free to work together at our common educational tasks and challenges." Yale Provost Allison Richard, in a letter to Dean Susan Hockfield. |
"[The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)] should be followed by faculty when addressing GESO-related issues with teaching fellows and PTAIs. This does not mean, however, that faculty cannot express their opinions about these issues. Indeed, they are very free to do so provided a few simple rules are followed. Section 8(c) of the NLRA states: "The expression of any views, arguments, or opinions or the dissemination thereof, whether in written, printed, graphic or visual form, shall not constitute or be evidence of an unfair labor practice . . . if such expression contains no threat of reprisal or force or promise of benefit." This provision is simply a statutory codification of the right to free speech on these and other subjects guaranteed by the United States Constitution as long as those expressions contain no threat of reprisal or force." Yale Vice-President and General Counsel Dorothy Robinson, in a letter to Dean Susan Hockfield. |
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This page was last updated on: December 17, 1999 |
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Graduate Employees and Students Organization |
http://www.geso.org |
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