Listen... do you hear that? Neither did I. That silence is the sound of a union forming. Unions are not evil, but they are a big deal. No union is ever formed quietly because unions are controversial and controlling bodies. The reason a graduate student union may form at Tufts University is because a select few have taken it upon themselves to underhandedly attempt to misrepresent their union-forming efforts as an act in response to an apathetic administration.
Unions can be beneficial, and unions can be divisive. When I finally heard that a union was underway, I thought there might be some positive aspects of joining. I had specific questions, and I posed them to the graduate student panel in charge of forming a union.
I asked some important questions. For example, "What negotiating avenues had you exhausted to feel it necessary to form a union?" There was no response. "What specific information do you have supporting the need for X (X being increased wages, health care, child care, dental coverage)?" The panel was not able to obtain any data, though it seems they have been lobbying for a union for months.
I have phoned graduate students I did not know at other universities, told them why I was interested, and obtained some information myself. It did not seem difficult, but the union-organizing panel was unable to find any? With or without a union, you always, ALWAYS need to have data supporting your cause.
Will a union force the administration to give us things we may or may not deserve without any information supporting these desires? I don't think they would, and even if they would, do we deserve it? What if a salary survey finds that Tufts University graduate students make more money then at other universities, will we give money back? Finally, I asked where the extra money for these causes would come from. Again, no answer. Maybe the university has an emergency piggy bank just for such instances, or maybe some other aspect of the university will get cut. Maybe the graduate student's gain is someone else's loss. Oh well, let those poor souls form their own union.
Let's not warp the perception of what we are talking about. Graduate students, by definition, are college educated. Every one of us could have taken our degree and gone out into the world and obtained a job. But, every single one of us decided to go to graduate school here at Tufts.
Education is not a guaranteed right. Many people in the United States do not go to college. Every graduate student at Tufts made a conscious choice to come here, to be a part of the student body and the university. Most graduate students pay no tuition, and receive small stipends. None of us make enough money to pay our living expenses, whether we live in Boston or in less expensive parts of the country. Many of us live with numerous other people to cut the costs to get by, or take out student loans to make ends meet.
This fact is not different anywhere is the US. Will a few extra dollars suddenly provide us champagne and caviar? Law students can typically run up astronomical amounts in school loans, and the Boston area is home to some of the best law schools in the country. How do they do it? Maybe we will start to see some of these universities sued by their prot?©g?©s. It would be their legal right, just like graduate students have a legal right to form unions.
Pro-union graduate students feel university faculty and administration from a university they chose are not capable of representing them. Well I choose NOT to have a union, but because of the efforts of a deceitful few, I may have one represent me anyway.
If these individuals put all of this extra time they have into their studies or actually interacting with university administration, maybe they wouldn't need a union. The situation graduate students now find themselves in is the following: do we want OUR administration, one we all choose to work with us on issues important to us all, or do we want a union picked by a select few, representing their own interests.
Jason Epstein is a graduate student studying chemistry.
