The scales of justice were in perfect balance for graduate employees this fall as legal decisions in several jurisdictions threw open the door for collective bargaining. In early October, the Illinois Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a lower court decision that recognized the right of graduate employees at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana to bargain collectively. Two weeks later, the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board ruled that a PLRB hearing officer erred in January when he ruled that Temple University graduate assistants were only students and not eligible to bargain as employees. And on Oct. 31, the National Labor Relations Board upheld an NLRB regional director's decision allowing graduate assistants at New York University the right to organize.

All of the cases addressed the standard obstacle universities throw in the path of graduate employee unions--that the teaching, grading, research and other services graduate students provide in exchange for compensation are part of their academic program, not employment per se. In Illinois, where the AFT-affiliated Graduate Employee Organization has been organizing for three years, the court found that many of the 5,500 graduate employees were teaching or doing academic work in areas not significantly connected to their fields of study. In the appellate court decision, which the state Supreme Court declined to hear, the court directed the state labor board to set a "significant connection" test. The board has to look at the paid work of the graduate employees and determine whether it is directly connected to the students' degree requirement or field dissertation study.

For the 1,100 graduate assistants represented by the Temple University Graduate Student Association/AFT, the board held that they are employees of the university and are protected by the Public Employee Labor Relations Act. The ruling noted that the graduate assistants "perform vital teaching and research services for the university" and are not required to perform the service to earn their graduate degrees.

"This ruling vindicates what we have said all along," says Ayanna Laney, a researcher in biochemistry. "We do a third of the undergraduate teaching at Temple. We keep the labs and offices running. Of course we're employees. Temple wouldn't work without us."

In Pennsylvania, the ruling sets an important precedent. A group of graduate employees at Penn State has affiliated with the AFT and began its organizing drive this fall.

The ruling on NYU, where the graduate assistants are represented by the Graduate Students Organizing Committee/United Auto Workers, sets a national precedent for private university and graduate employee organizing.

The unions will be keeping the pressure on their administrations to move quickly through unit definition hearings to hold elections.

The Illinois and Temple victories represent the depth of commitment and support of the union for collective bargaining for graduate employees, says Phil Kugler, director of organizing for the AFT. "We're the premier union for these workers," he notes.

"These decisions will finally give graduate employees a voice at work and rights they have long deserved," said AFT president Sandra Feldman.

The 660 faculty and 200 professional staff of the Cook County College Teachers Union were ready for a job action this fall. It would be the first strike in more than 20 years. Placards and signs at hand, telephone trees activated, and strike committee on full alert--the union had set a written deadline of when it would take a vote on the offer on the table. Three hundred union members picketed a board of trustees meeting a week before the deadline to drive home the message: The deadline was at hand, and the vote would determine the union's next step.

Although the relatively new chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago did not take the union's strike threat seriously, the mayor's office did. And so, in the final weekend, the city sent its deputy mayor to the table. After a year of no movement on a management offer of 2.5 percent annual salary increases, the final agreement was 5 percent for each year of the contract, which expires July 15, 2004. On Oct. 20, 74 percent of the faculty and 65 percent of the professionals voted to ratify.

In addition to the poor salary offer, double-digit hikes in health insurance premiums and a workload increase, CCCTU faced a major stumbling block that had been thrown into its path in 1994. That year, the Republican Legislature passed House Bill 206, which prohibited the union from bargaining a host of contract provisions. Topics legally declared "null and void" included class size, distance learning, academic calendar, hours of teaching, full-time and part-time ratios, and so on. Nevertheless, the union was fighting to retain the preexisting language on these subjects in the agreement and even to strengthen measures on distance learning and intellectual property rights.

In the end, the union retained the language. It kept the insurance premiums to a 5 percent annual increase. Teaching load will increase for new faculty from 12 contact hours a semester to 15 as will office hours, but older faculty are not affected.

Key to the settlement, says CCCTU president and AFT vice president Norman Swenson, was the union's "incredible credibility." Being highly prepared to strike helped to avoid a strike. And, since 1994, when Republicans gained the triple crown--the governor's mansion and both houses of the Illinois Legislature--the union has stepped up its political involvement with the long-range goal of overturning H.B. 206. In 1996, Democrats took back the House. Since then, the House has passed legislation three times to revoke the bill, but the state Senate has blocked it.

Professional development task force holds first meeting

What does quality professional development for educators really look like, and what are the best ways to provide it for every AFT member working in the classroom? Those questions dominated discussion at a meeting of state and local union leaders who gathered at AFT headquarters in October for the first meeting of the AFT task force on union-sponsored professional development.

Established by the AFT executive council last summer, the task force is chaired by San Antonio Federation of Teachers president Shelley Potter and encompasses local and state union leaders along with higher education leadership and Educational Research and Dissemination (ER&D) specialists. First steps for the panel include defining roles and responsibilities for the union in delivering professional development. Educating AFT leaders about the need to make promoting professional development a core union activity and helping members themselves become informed consumers of professional development will also be crucial components of the effort.

Delivery models for professional development generated considerable discussion. While all agreed it is not feasible to have the union as a sole sponsor of professional development for districts around the country, the panel began to explore ways of crafting a strategic package of approaches--ranging from unions serving as a direct provider to brokering arrangements among districts, higher education and other interested institutions--that could maximize the reach and effectiveness of professional development while preserving quality.