Some University of Maryland graduate students are considering revitalizing efforts to gain collective bargaining rights following a federal labor board ruling that granted student teaching assistants at private universities employee status, which includes the right to unionize.
The National Labor Relations Board’s 3-1 decision on Aug. 23 — which came after Columbia University students made a case to the board that they should be considered employees — does not affect public institutions such as this university , but could lead the way for unionization across campuses nationwide.
“This decision about the private universities is a really good moment for our university to reevaluate its position on graduate employment and collective bargaining rights,” said Yvonne Slosarski, a sixth-year communication doctoral student. “The NLRB decision should at least prompt our administration to think about changing their position.”
This university considers graduate assistants as students, rather than employees.
Graduate students have been talking about unionization for at least 10 years on this campus, Slosarski said, and the Graduate Assistant Advisory Council plans to conduct a survey asking graduate students about employment conditions in the near future. Low stipends coupled with high fees have been some of graduate assistants’ top complaints, said Will Howell, a council member and communication doctoral student.
This university’s minimum stipend for a nine-and-a-half-month assistantship is $16,144, according to the Office of Research Administration’s website. The median stipend for a graduate assistant was $17,840 for a nine-and-a-half-month assistantship in 2013, according to data provided by Charles Caramello, former dean of the graduate school. It’s the most recent data the graduate school has provided despite requests for more updated information, Howell said.
Although this university offers tuition awards to graduate students with assistantships or fellowships, they are still required to pay graduate student mandatory fees, which are $769 per semester for the 2016-17 year, according to the bursar’s office website. This amount can take up as much as 10 percent of graduate assistant stipends, Howell said.
And while minimum and total stipends were comparable to other universities in the Big Ten, the cost of living in the city of College Park and the Washington area was considerably higher, according to a survey conducted by the council. Slosarski, who is from Chicago, didn’t realize how difficult it would be to live on her stipend amount in the Washington area until she arrived, she said.
The last major push for collective bargaining rights at this university was in 2011. However, University System of Maryland officials and then-Gov. Martin O’Malley’s office negotiated a meet-and-confer process instead, which guarantees graduate assistants periodic meetings with the administration, but no negotiations of graduate working conditions.
The graduate school formed the council in 2011 to conduct the meet-and-confer negotiations, according to a 2012 Diamondback article.
“GAAC was created sort of as a compromise to collective bargaining,” said Justine Beaulieu, a 2015 alumna and former council member. “The graduate school didn’t necessarily want its graduate students to be unionized, but it did want to facilitate communication between the administration and graduate students.”
Slosarski said even with the council, if graduate assistants don’t have the status of employees, they can’t collectively bargain for aspects of their employment.
“When we’re seen only as students, sometimes our input is seen as like, cute, instead of a meaningful, impactful assessment of the university and what our needs are,” Slosarski said.
Howell said collective bargaining rights could be beneficial to the university by attracting more graduate students to the university.
“It’s not just about our employment conditions”, Howell said. “It’s also to remain competitive with those peer colleges.”
While schools that have collective bargaining rights tend to be more competitive by offering better salaries and benefits, Slosarski said it’s also about recognizing “that we matter — that our labor matters.”
Despite not having a union, Slosarski said the administration and the council have worked together successfully to resolve some of graduate students’ employment issues in recent years.
In 2013, the Graduate Student Government implemented a parental leave policy, which the council pushed for nearly since its creation, Slosarski said. Most recently, this university allowed graduate assistants to waive the enrollment fee for the Terp Payment Plan after receiving feedback from the council. The plan allows graduate students to pay their student fees in installments throughout the semester.
Beaulieu said the council is becoming more effective each year.
“The more that graduate assistants are aware of its existence, the more they are able to communicate with GAAC, and GAAC is more able to communicate effectively with the administration, so I think it’s getting there and I think, maybe over the next five years it will continue to grow and improve,” Beaulieu said.
Vice President of Administration and Finance Carlo Colella, who works closely with the council, did not respond to The Diamondback’s request for comment.
