Yale Graduate Students Petition To Unionize

Yesterday, graduate students at Yale University presented a petition with over 1,000 signatures to the administration asking for a vote to unionize.

The petition was presented by several hundred members of the Graduate Employees and Students Organization, along with supporters and members of Unite Here locals 34 and 35.

“If ever there was a day to show this is not a fair-weather movement, this is it,” shouted GESO Chair Aaron Greenberg, on the steps of Woodbridge Hall. Rallying students wore rain gear and chanted, “Our work makes Yale work.”

GESO has existed for decades, supporting union efforts at Yale by Locals 34 and 35 and pushing for the rights of graduate students to bargain collectively with the university. Yale has never recognized the group.

Recently, GESO at Yale has been buoyed by recent events in Connecticut and New York, where graduate organizations there have voted to unionize.

Unionization of graduate students has been a long time coming.  Increasingly, it is the graduate students who are being asked to take the work loads normally assigned to adjunct instructors.

“We teach, we grade, we hold office hours, we oversee experiments. We do work, and our work matters,” said Greenberg, a graduate student in political science. “If the university trusts us to teach, they should trust us to negotiate over the conditions of our work.”

According to Greenberg, an increasing amount of the teaching and academic work at U.S. colleges and universities is being done by graduate students who are not on a tenure track and have no job security.

Kim, a fourth-year graduate student in the English department, said she teaches two classes at Yale. She wrote the syllabus, teaches each class session and grades every paper.

“My work here takes many forms,” Kim said.

At this time it is not known if the President of Yale or the Graduate School Dean have seen or read the petitions yet.

However, Yale  spokesman Tom Conroy said Wednesday the university and graduate school “have worked and will continue to work productively with faculty and students, including the Graduate Student Assembly, on the issues identified by the petition. We are committed to the best possible academic outcomes for our students.”

The petition also asked Yale to maintain competitive wages and benefits, address unfair workload situations, negotiate with graduate students as Yale adds two residential colleges and boost hiring of women and people of color.

So on this May Day, the march towards worker equality continues slowly but surely.

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