GRADUATE EMPLOYEES at the University System of Maryland explained to members of the state Legislature on Feb. 19 why they are employees, not students, and should have the right to form a union. And in testimony before the House Appropriations Committee, they described how their having a voice in determining their working conditions would benefit both the university and state residents.

The committee was considering House Bill 538, which would grant graduate workers and adjunct professors (called "contractual faculty" in the bill) the right to collectively bargain. Laura Moore, president of the UM Graduate Student Government, and a member of the organizing committee of Maryland Teachers and Researchers (MTR), described how "time and again, financial considerations interfere with academics" at the university.

A university committee was formed last year to study why the Ph.D. completion rate at the College Park campus was just 48 percent. It found that the workload of teaching assistants, touted by the administration as 20 hours a week, is closer to 30. Graduate employees teach all the freshman English 101 courses, averaging two sections a semester with 23 students each who write at least five papers during the semester. And often, TAs' teaching assignments are not related to their disciplinary studies.

While H.B. 538 and a companion bill in the Senate did not make it out of their respective committees, they are expected to be resubmitted next session.