In what would be the largest union organizing victory in Minnesota in decades, graduate employees at the University of Minnesota filed for a union representation election on Feb. 11.

The union would represent 4,300 graduate employees at the university's Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth campuses. The union, UE Local 1105, calls itself GradTRAC, for Graduate Teaching and Research Assistant Coalition.

The graduate employees, who are among the university's 16,000 graduate and professional students, say they are part of the university's backbone ? teaching many of the undergraduate classes on campus, grading exams, and working side by side with professors on the research that adds to the university's prestige.

But like many workers everywhere, graduate employees are shouldering bigger workloads and working longer hours for no additional pay, said Kristen Houlton, a teaching assistant in Philosophy. Grad employees are being squeezed further as medical insurance, university fees and other costs are dumped on them. For international students and students with families, it's even worse. The result is a real cut in take-home pay, Houlton said.

More than bread-and-butter issues
As the slogan "Better Jobs, Better U" suggests, the graduate employees see their campaign as more than just improving their own situation.

"I feel we're in a battle right now over the soul of the university," said Isaac Kamola, a teaching assistant in Political Science. He and others cite signs that the university is replacing its historical land-grant mission, affordable and accessible to all, with a more exclusive approach.

"It's bigger issues than just the bread-and-butter issues," said Leanna Noble, organizer for UE ? the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, an independent union based in Pittsburgh. It represents 35,000 members, including graduate employees at the University of Iowa.

"There really is an identity with the university, and very much a commitment to the prestige and future of this institution," Noble said. "People see their working conditions as linked to a better future for education here."

The diversity of work done by graduate employees ? who staff more than 125 departments ? means there is incredible inconsistency in pay, hours, costs and working conditions, union activists say. They expect to eliminate some of those disparities by establishing consistent standards, as UE has done at Iowa.

Alicia Gibson, a graduate student in Comparative Literature, and Jurgen Laun, of the Department of German, Scandinavian and Dutch, stuff envelopes in the GradTRAC organizing office. Union Advocate photo

Eleventh in the Big Ten
Pay for teaching assistants averages about $12,300, university figures show. However, graduate salaries at the U are 11th in the Big Ten, according to a GradTRAC analysis of salaries, gathered independently by the Association of American Universities then adjusted for fee and tuition waivers.

University departments pay the tuition of graduate employees, but often don?t pay fees, giving the university "a backdoor route to raise revenue" from employees, Kamola said.

Graduate employees also are concerned about their future, period.

They point to a university task force that is recommending ways to contain the overall costs of graduate education. Proposals include merging, eliminating or "right-sizing" departments, and restricting how many students are admitted or how long they can stay. It also urges eliminating some graduate teaching assistant jobs and replacing them with "teaching specialists."

Houlton says those would be adjuncts or graduate students who don't receive the benefits that TAs now receive.

"It sounds very much like a largely corporate document," she said.

Real leverage
There is a graduate student association at the university; its role, unfortunately, is essentially advisory, said Ryan Murphy, a graduate fellow in American Studies.

Last June, a division of that graduate association ? the Council of Graduate Students ? published an "open letter" that raised the issues of fees, health insurance, housing, the cost of living in the Twin Cities, research funding, and teaching loads, among other topics.

"They were employment-based issues, the kind of issues that were being brought up because there was no union that was addressing those concerns," said Houlton, who like some other union activists is also involved in the graduate association.

Graduate employees need an organization with power ? and staying power, Murphy said. "We need a way for this to be a permanent discussion with the university."

Clerical strike was catalyst
GradTRAC activists already claim one victory. University president Robert Bruininks has pledged to raise salary minimums by 10 percent beginning in July. Noble calls it a "very typical employer ploy" during an organizing campaign ? but an example of the real difference a union can make.

At the University of Iowa, minimum salaries have risen 49 percent in the 8 years since graduate employees joined UE.

Of Big Ten universities whose state labor laws allow collective bargaining for graduate employees, the University of Minnesota is the only one where they have not successfully unionized.

To help change that, graduate union representatives from Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State and Wisconsin are meeting on campus Feb. 25 with GradTRAC activists. More than a dozen Twin Cities labor organizations, including AFSCME Local 3800 ? the university clerical workers' union ? are hosting a "solidarity reception" afterward.

It was the two-week strike by university clerical workers in October 2003 that kick-started the grad employees' own campaign and showed them the power of collective action, organizers say.

"After that, we started talking about our position here, and seeing that we had a lot of commonalities," Kamola said.

Adapted from The Union Advocate, the official newspaper of the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly. E-mail The Advocate at: advocate@mtn.org