Graduate-student strike may affect finals, classes

Friday, November 20, 1998

Graduate-student strike may affect finals, classes

SAGE: University works on how to handle exams without readers,
graders

By Timothy Kudo

Daily Bruin Contributor

Upcoming student-employee strikes throughout the UC system,
including UCLA, may affect undergraduate studies, causing
discussion sections, grades and finals to be altered or cancelled
due to lack of teaching assistants and readers.

The unions have announced that until the University of
California recognizes them and is willing to bargain with them,
they are prepared to strike.

"We are not trying to strike our undergraduates’ education,"
said Connie Razza, an organizer for the Student Association of
Graduate Employees/United Auto Workers (SAGE/UAW), the graduate
student union at UCLA. "We are striking only our labor."

Sources at various campuses have hinted that the strike could
begin the week following Thanksgiving.

The university has stated that it will do everything within its
power to ensure that undergraduate studies do not suffer.

"Every attempt will be made to preserve the instructional goals
and not to have this impact on undergraduate students," said Jim
Turner, assistant vice-chancellor of the graduate division.

In order to deal with less help from their teaching assistants
(TAs), professors may have to reconsider how they will give
exams.

"One possibility, for example, would be instead of the
essay-type examinations … to switch back to a multiple-choice
exam that can be machine-graded," said Robin Fisher, associate dean
of the graduate division.

However, some professors have said that in social sciences or
humanities courses, multiple-choice examinations cannot replace
essay examinations.

"The final exam is an important component of the course grade
and I couldn’t imagine doing multiple choice," said Professor
Robert Gurval, who teaches a class of over 200 students. "The
faculty member will have to take over the responsibility of grading
the examinations."

The university has also considered the possibility of hiring
replacement workers.

"We still have to do our utmost to meet what our commitments
basically are. If that involved replacement workers, that would be
one possibility," Fisher said.

The unions are demanding that the university recognize them as
valid representatives of academic student employees in collective
bargaining.

"We’ve given the administration five months to sit down and talk
with us about recognition … and the administration not only
hasn’t recognized the union but has refused to even talk to the
union," Razza said.

The university argues that the union shouldn’t be recognized
because TAs are primarily students, not employees.

"Teaching assistants occupy a unique role and … collective
bargaining would be harmful to the quality of graduate education,"
Turner said.

Angelo O. Mercado, a teaching assistant for Latin 1 and a member
of SAGE, said he feels privileged to be a TA at UCLA, as opposed to
other schools which don’t offer such opportunities.

"This is part of our training," Mercado said. "It’s not just
doing scholarly work. What good a scholar are you if you can’t
share that knowledge?"

Others argue that regardless of what the circumstances are, any
group of employees should have the right to organize.

"I think that if the TAs want a union they should have it," said
Katherine King, a professor of classics.

This strike will be different from previous strikes – the most
recent being in fall 1996 – because it will be funded by the larger
United Auto Workers union, which is associated with the UC student
employee unions. Unlike prior strikes, participants will now be
compensated up to $150 a week from UAW strike funds, Razza
said.

"We’ve planned it to be more disruptive because the less
disruptive strikes didn’t work," Razza said. "The duration of the
strike will certainly be longer than the strikes that we’ve tried
before."

Comments, feedback, problems?

© 1998 ASUCLA Communications Board[Home]