This spring was a momentous time for AFT's graduate employee unions. Two unions--at Temple University and Michigan State--were victorious in elections against "no agent." Two organizing committees--in Pennsylvania and Maryland--voted to affiliate with the AFT. And another union found itself having to ratchet up the ongoing battle with its Goliath of an employer, the University of Illinois.

A landslide at Temple
With a ratio of 18-to-1, graduate employees at Temple University put a triumphant finale on their four-year-long campaign to unionize. The Temple University Graduate Student Association had to counter almost every blocking tactic to be found in the arsenal of union-busting strategists. TUGSA held its members together by focusing on the righteousness and reasonableness of their cause. The union also won the support of labor, religious and civic groups in Philadelphia, which helped increase the pressure on the university to deal fairly with the union. On March 27-28, the members voted 290 to 16 for TUGSA, an AFT affiliate, against no agent.

The administration had maintained throughout that the graduate employees were students and had taken its case through the courts and before the Pennsylvania labor board. TUGSA cleared the final hurdle last October when the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board, relying on a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision involving interns at Boston Medical Center, ruled that the Temple graduate employees have the right to bargain.

The overwhelming vote "gives us a mandate to go to the table and negotiate a strong contract for the folks who teach and conduct research here at the university," says organizer and teaching assistant Rob Callahan. The key issues the union will take up in bargaining the first contract for its unit of 500 are stipends, health benefits and workload.

Full-time faculty at Temple are also represented by an AFT affiliate--the Temple Association of University Professionals.

Grad employees stand up to MSU
Despite a last-ditch effort to intimidate graduate and teaching assistants at Michigan State University, the MSU Graduate Employee Union voted 662 to 192 to be represented by GEU's affiliate, the Michigan Federation of Teachers and School Related Personnel/AFT.

Less than a month before graduate employees at Michigan State University went to the polls on April 19-20, management declared war on the union, waging such a strong anti-union campaign that even elected officials took offense. On April 2, a bipartisan group of more than 25 Michigan legislators sent a letter to MSU's president, expressing their concerns.

"We strongly believe that it is inappropriate for the administration, as a public employer, to take sides in the upcoming union representation election," the legislators wrote. They were displeased that the university was holding department meetings to influence votes and posting anti-union information on its Web site. These actions, the lawmakers said, "tarnish the spirit of the law prohibiting intimidation in union elections."

The unit of 1,500 joins two other well-established graduate employee unions in the state--one of the AFT's oldest locals at the University of Michigan and a recent affiliate at Wayne State University.

Illinois labor board delivers blow
The Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board has decided that nearly 95 percent of the 5,200 teaching, research and graduate assistants working at the University of Illinois are not eligible to vote in an upcoming collective bargaining election. The decision reverses a string of positive rulings for the Graduate Employees Organization/AFT, which has been working since 1995 to achieve bargaining rights for graduate employees.

As in so many of these campaigns nationwide, the university has taken the position from the start that the graduate employees who deliver so much of the undergraduate education at the University of Illinois (for one-quarter of the cost of a full-time faculty member) are doing so as part of their education. The Illinois Appellate Court and the Illinois Supreme Court rejected that argument last year.

When the university and the GEO went before the IELRB last fall to present their arguments for precisely who among the graduate employee body would qualify as statutory employees, the university delivered an extremist view, says the GEO. In what's becoming an all-too-familiar refrain, the administration's interpretation centered on the notion that graduate employees do the work "to become familiar with the faculty and scholarly culture." The IELRB bought this argument.

The interpretation goes against overwhelming national precedent, especially in the past year when the National Labor Relations Board has recognized the right of graduate employees at the private New York University to vote on collective bargaining.

"Throughout this process, the administration has actively worked to thwart the democratic process," says Kate Bullard, co-president of the GEO.

"It's clear that this decision will be unacceptable to our members," notes Rob Henn, GEO coordinating committee member. "And it's also clear that the IELRB and the U of I administration have left us with few options for gaining a voice for graduate employees on campus."

The union will take a new tack in the coming academic year, say its leaders, and build more pressure on the university to recognize the union voluntarily. Already the union has received widespread support from church groups, labor organizations and the community; and it has support from state legislators. The university's lobbying clout, however, is formidable.

"We are going to continue to build this union," promises Ray Mackey, AFT regional director. "The AFT doesn't just organize where we have favorable legislation."

New unions form in Maryland, Pennsylvania
On March 4 (just before TUGSA's historic win), the union organizing committee at the University of Pennsylvania, Graduate Employees Together-UP (GET-UP), voted for AFT affiliation. GET-UP was also spurred by the NLRB decision earlier this winter that graduate employees in private universities have the right to bargain.

Not too surprisingly, the university announced pay raises and the availability of health benefits for graduate employees for the 2001-02 year. These are the two biggest issues GET-UP had identified. The union could end up representing a group of about 700 or 800.

The Penn State University Graduate and Fixed Term Employees Organization, a group of approximately 3,300 employees that affiliated with the AFT last year, is in the midst of a significant card drive and hopes to file for an election before the semester is over. GFTEO has also targeted raises and health insurance as the two key issues for its members.

In Maryland, graduate employees at the University of Maryland--some 4,000 of the 10,000 graduate students there--are organizing. They are called Graduates, Adjuncts, Lecturers: Organized Labor (GALOL) and affiliated this spring with AFT-Maryland and the national union. GALOL will be mounting a card drive in the fall and is planning to seek voluntary recognition from the university.