A box of ballots locked in a safe in a Boston office holds the answer to whether Brown University graduate employees will form a union.
In December, it appeared the decision would be announced soon, but many close to the issue think the earliest it will happen is later this semester.
Last spring, a group of graduate employees filed membership cards declaring their intent to form a union with the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) International. Other UAW members include about 48,000 Michigan and Indiana state employees, and service, clerical, technical and graduate student employees at more than 20 colleges and universities. Brown is the first university in the Ivy League to put the question of unionization to a vote.
With the filing of membership cards for Brown Graduate Employees Organization-UAW, came a petition to the National Labor Relations Board requesting union representation.
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Over the summer the NLRB held hearings in which both objectors and supporters of unionization for Brown graduate students presented evidence about why a union would or wouldn’t be a good idea.
In November, the NLRB came back with a favorable ruling, saying the graduate employees have a right to form a union, and the right to an election. In early December, the election, supervised by the NLRB, was held, but during this time university officials requested an extension, and appealed the right to have the election to the NLRB. The ballots were impounded immediately afterward without being counted.
The ball is now in the court of the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., where only two of five members are in office. Until President Bush appoints new members and the board is fully constituted, the ballots will remain uncounted in the safe of the NLRB’s Boston office.
“The paperwork is all done and really it’s just a matter of time to see if the NLRB will decide if there will be an appeal,” said Mark Nickel, director of news service at Brown.
The university’s leadership is not the only opposition facing graduate students teaming up with the UAW.
Christopher Cooper is a sixth year student at Brown, finishing up a graduate degree on planetary geology, and a spokesperson for the group At What Cost? a group of Brown graduate employees opposed to unionizing with the UAW.
“Part of the benefit of my being older is that I’ve been a teacher’s assistant for a few courses, and I was more flexible with my time,” he said. “And having been here a little while my biggest objection was that I thought it was not the right way to go about trying to effect changes at Brown.”
Lennart Erickson, who is also a spokesperson for At What Cost?, said he is not against unions in general, but does not feel that this is the right time or place for it.
“There are three main reasons we are against it,” he said. “First, a union will create an adversarial relationship with the university where all our discussions would necessarily turn into fights.”
“Second, we don’t want an outside organization like UAW representing our interests,” he said. “And third we thought the election process was fundamentally undemocratic.”
Erickson was upset that certain students were not allowed to vote because they were not considered employees last semester, but would be this semester.
“Sometimes you’re a teacher’s assistant and other times you’re a research assistant, depending on the semester,” he said. “That shouldn’t determine whether or not you’re allowed to vote on something that will inevitably affect you.”
Peggy Shorey, an organizer with UAW, who has been working with pro-union Brown graduate employees since the summer, responded to the complaint by asserting that the NLRB defined graduate employees under current legal precedent as teacher’s assistants, proctors and some research assistants, and since the NLRB supervised the election, the decision could be made by that organization.
Brown Graduate Employees Organization supporters say that with a union issues such as appropriate stipend amounts, teaching and research conditions and benefits can be addressed more effectively.
“The problem right now is that there’s no way graduate employees have real power to negotiate with the administration,” said Shorey. Erickson said he agrees that these are valid concerns, but maintains that a union adds an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy, and the best way to solve these problems is to talk directly to the administration.
“They did raise some important issues,” he said of the Brown Graduate Employees Organization, but bringing in the union is “like killing a fly with a sledgehammer.”
