Tuesday, February 16, 1999
Lingering
SAGE/UAW: As vote on heated issue nears, Chancellor Carnesale
urges students to consider pitfalls of collective bargaining
By Albert Carnesale
On March 9-11, graduate and undergraduate students who assist in
instruction on our campus will vote on a question of great
significance to the future of our academic community: whether
students working as teaching assistants (TAs) and in other
instructional roles should be organized in a collective bargaining
unit and represented exclusively by an affiliate of the United Auto
Workers (UAW), the Student Association of Graduate Student
Employees (SAGE).
My purposes in writing about this important election are to urge
all of us to learn about the issues involved, to urge all eligible
students to vote, and to explain why I believe that collective
bargaining in this case would harm the quality of education at
UCLA.
I recognize and appreciate the valuable contributions to the
university made by students working as TAs and in other
instructional roles. Were it not for their efforts, UCLA would not
be the outstanding institution of higher learning that it is today.
It is essential that the collegial and cordial relations among all
members of the university community be maintained and enhanced.
My concern, which prompts writing this submission, is not about
collective bargaining in general or about other collective
bargaining units on our campus. I am proud that UCLA maintains good
relations with seven collective bargaining units representing
nearly 9,000 employees, and I regard these positive relationships
as vital to the health of our university. In most instances, I
believe, employees should have the right to organize and to bargain
collectively if they choose to do so. But the students who will
vote in March are employees secondarily. Primarily they are
students, and their principal bond to UCLA is the student/teacher
relationship.
Before explaining how collective bargaining would harm that
relationship, which is fundamental to our academic mission, let me
first provide more information about the March election.
The election has been authorized by California’s Public
Employment Relations Board (PERB), which will also oversee the
voting over three days at two locations, the Molecular Biology
Institute (MBI) and Bunche Hall.
Those eligible to vote will be students, both graduate and
undergraduate, who were employed in instructional roles as of
January 23, 1999.
The largest group, numbering about 1,400, will be graduate
students, mainly those serving as TAs. Others, including about 300
undergraduates, will be working as readers or tutors or in similar
roles. (Eligible voters comprise students serving in the following
instructional roles: teaching assistant, teaching associate,
teaching fellow, reader, special reader, tutor and remedial
tutor.)
Almost all of those eligible to vote have enrolled as students
at UCLA to learn, develop skills and earn degrees. They did not
enroll in order to be employed at this stage of their careers.
Their role as students is primary, their work as employees
secondary. Both are valuable to them and to the university.
For TAs, the main values of instructional employment are to gain
professional experience in university teaching and to provide
financial support for the primary task of graduate study.
The first point deserves emphasis. Since teaching and research
are two of the three main roles of faculty in American universities
(the other is service), and since most students working as TAs plan
on faculty careers, instructional employment brings more than
financial support for graduate education. It is a key part of the
educational experience that prepares graduate students for the
academic profession.
There is, of course, room for improvement in the experiences of
TAs and other students engaged in instructional roles, and I am
eager to address any deficiencies.
At the same time, however, it is clear that these experiences at
UCLA are among the best at any university, as evidenced by external
reviews and ratings of our graduate programs, by the positions for
which our graduates are recruited, and – not least of all – by the
comments of graduate students themselves.
Graduate students receive an outstanding education at UCLA
mainly because of the excellence of our faculty. The essence of
graduate education is the relationship between students and the
faculty who instruct, counsel, and supervise them both as
researchers and as teachers. I believe that collective bargaining
would harm that essential relationship. Let me explain why.
In general, collective bargaining covers three broad categories:
wages, hours and working conditions. But the boundaries between
these matters and fundamental academic matters are highly
permeable. Indeed, questions like the following come to the
bargaining table at universities:
Who may be hired as TAs?
How many TAs will be employed?
How will openings for TA positions be described and
communicated?
What training will be required for TAs?
Which TAs will teach which courses?
Who may do which jobs in teaching courses?
How much time is required for a TA to do a job?
What space will be assigned to TAs?
For how long will TAs be employed?
How will TAs be disciplined or discharged?
Such questions are now mostly answered at UCLA through the
student/teacher relationship – by faculty working collegially with
graduate students in departments and programs. Collective
bargaining would introduce a third party – a labor organization –
between students and teachers.
Faculty and graduate students now answer such questions mainly
by making judgments on the basis of academic criteria. Collective
bargaining would introduce other criteria, including, quite likely,
seniority.
Disputes arising from such questions are now settled within the
university, mainly within departments or programs. Collective
bargaining would resolve disputes by arbitration, through external
parties.
Answers to such questions now vary from department to
department, ensuring the educational flexibility required by a
university as large and as complex as ours. Collective bargaining
would produce rigid rules, universally applied.
In considering such questions, faculty now act as teachers and
researchers, in a professorial role. Collective bargaining would
cast faculty in the role of management. Graduate students now work
collegially with faculty to find answers to such questions.
Collective bargaining would cast students not as colleagues, but as
labor.
The labor/management relation, valued by UCLA in dealing with
many groups of employees, should not displace the student/teacher
relation. But collective bargaining for students would cause that
displacement, diminishing opportunities for students to work
collegially with faculty and increasing adversarial occasions.
By replacing academic criteria, practices and persons with
non-academic criteria, practices and persons, collective bargaining
would diminish the excellence of graduate and undergraduate
education on our campus.
As chancellor, I am responsible for maintaining and enhancing
UCLA’s educational excellence. With that in mind, I feel obligated
to declare my opposition to collective bargaining for our teaching
assistants and other students engaged in instructional roles. I
hope that after careful consideration of this matter, you will
reach the same conclusion.
In any case, I urge every member of our academic community to
consider carefully the issues involved in the upcoming election,
and I urge every student who is eligible to vote to do so.
Meanwhile, I want to make clear that by expressing my views on
collective bargaining in the case of students engaged in
instructional roles, I am not opposing any persons or groups at
UCLA, whatever their views on these issues.
On the contrary, my esteem for all of our students, faculty and
staff is very great, as are my hopes for their happiness and my
expectations for their success.
Those hopes and expectations, in fact, motivate my strong
feelings about this matter and their expression here.
Comments, feedback, problems?
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