Ruling Favors Graduate Student Union

By Amba Datta

Spectator Associate News Editor

Columbia Daily Spectator

April 27, 2001

 

Yesterday was not a bright day for the Columbia Administration as it continued to challenge the right of Columbia's Graduate Student Employees United's efforts to unionize the University's teaching and research assistants.

In the second day of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hearings and at an issue inquiry forum on campus, the University came under fire as it maintained its position that Columbia's teaching and research assistants are not employees.

NLRB hearings supervisor Rhonda Gottlieb ruled yesterday that the nature of the work assistants perform would not be a consideration in the Board's decision on the employee status of Columbia's TAs and research assistants.

The ruling was a major blow to the Administration, which had argued that graduate students' teaching duties are inseparable from the education they receive as students, a line of reasoning called "educational relatedness." That argument, which Gottlieb rejected, had formed the backbone of the Administration's case against unionization.

Gottlieb's ruling upheld a motion proposed by lawyers for the United Auto Workers (UAW), which is affiliated with GSEU, who sought to limit testimony in support of this argument.

The UAW filed the motion last Thursday because it felt that the court had already declared the educational relatedness argument invalid in a similar case earlier this year involving New York University.

The NYU decision last year held that graduate students are employees because they perform services under the direction and control of the university for compensation. By granting graduate students at a private university employee status under the National Labor Relations Act, the board set a precedent that UAW hopes will apply to Columbia as well.

Dan Ratner, representing UAW, said after the first day of hearings with respect to the educational relatedness argument, ''The Board has held that that's not relevant [in the NYU case]" he said. "There shouldn't be witnesses on that."

Columbia Associate General Counsel Patricia Catapano could not be reached last night for comment.

David Carpio, a graduate student in the Biological Sciences Department and a GSEU organizer, took the court's ruling on the argument as a favorable sign for the GSEU/UAW case. "The NLRB threw out educational relatedness," he said. "It speeds up the process [and] it validates the precedent that has already been set."

The University, as represented by Gillian Lindt, interim dean of the Graduate School of the Arts and Sciences, Gene Awakuni, vice president for student services, and Michael O'Connor, vice dean for finance and administration at the Mailman School of Public Health, also articulated its views with regards to unionization at a forum yesterday sponsored by the Graduate Student Advisory Council (GSAC), which was attended overwhelmingly by union supporters.
Lindt reiterated the University's position that graduate students are not employees and made references to concerns the Administration has with potential strikes and infringement upon academic issues.

"I find it very difficult to see," said Lindt, "even with the best of intentions, how one can separate the issue of employee status from academic issues."

Lindt also said that there are no models of private universities that Columbia can examine. NYU, the only private university to grant graduate student union recognition, is still in the process of contract negotiations.

O'Connor spoke briefly upon the issue of changes in the faculty student relationship that a union might bring and said that it might produce a more adversarial climate.

But English Professor Ann Douglas, a supporter of unionization, said there is a misconception of some kind of an existing apprentice relationship between students and faculty. "It doesn't work like that to begin with," she said, adding that the relationship between faculty and their graduate students often takes the form of a give and take exchange of ideas.

At several points during the meeting, members of the audience, many of whom were wearing the light-blue GSEU buttons, called out in response to remarks.

Awakuni told the audience at one point that "you can hold the University accountable" without a union. Audience members shouted "How?" and Awakuni responded, "In whatever way you think is appropriate" to which some yelled "a union!"

The University has hitherto presented the only organized public resistance to unionization of teaching assistants and research assistants at Columbia. An opposition movement among graduate students, however, is growing.

A website has been created, in part by history graduate student Giovanni Ruffini, for Columbia Graduate Students Against Unionization (GSAU).

Another, anonymous site claims to be the homepage of the "Fayerweather Liberation Army," and lampoons the unionization movement at Columbia through four online newsletter issues. The site bears the slogan "You don't have to think about it... Just join!"