TAs entitled to same rights as UC employees

Wednesday, December 2, 1998

TAs entitled to same rights as UC employees

STRIKE: Granting collective bargaining power would recognize
assistants’ impact

UC President Richard C. Atkinson needs to recognize teaching
assistants (TAs) for what they actually are: university employees.
Teaching assistants grade papers in undergraduate courses, lead
discussions and give final grades; their labor warrants employee
recognition, and they are thus entitled the same rights as other
university employees. TAs deserve the right to collectively
bargain.

In order to end this week’s strike, which would be in the best
interest of undergraduate education, the university must safeguard
these rights for teaching assistants immediately.

The TA strike, which was strategically planned to begin Tuesday,
comes as the result of the university’s repeated refusal to
recognize the Student Association of Graduate Employees (SAGE) as a
union. In 1996, the Public Employees Relations Board (PERB), ruled
that TAs, tutors, and readers have collective bargaining rights at
UC San Diego. The California Court of Appeal later granted
collective bargaining rights to readers and tutors, because "their
duties are not integral to their educational experience." The court
appeal allowed the universities to determine collective bargaining
rights for teaching assistants. Eight UC campuses, including UCLA,
chose not to.

Atkinson decided not to recognize teaching assistants as
employees, claiming that TAs are not entitled to collective
bargaining rights because they are "principally students rather
than employees."

Although Atkinson continues to spout the "students first and
employees second" rhetoric as the reasoning behind the UC’s actions
(or lack thereof), it is more likely that the real reason that TAs
aren not currently afforded bargaining rights is because of the
potentially expensive fiscal impact that the bargaining rights
could incur (if TAs asked for medical benefits, for instance).
Although the potential fiscal impact on the university is a real
concern, the labor rights of the graduate students who are
striking, and the undergraduate courses they impact, should be of
paramount concern.

Graduate students who teach are essentially UCLA employees. They
provide a service for undergraduates that, unfortunately, does not
come from the professors who are technically responsible for our
undergraduate education. If TAs impart knowledge and receive a
paycheck for doing so, then they should be treated as employees of
this university.

Atkinson supports his decision with the idea that TAs are
apprentices, whose "instructional duties, overseen by faculty
advisors, are integral to their education." Graduate students do
learn teaching skills and methods while working as TAs, but they
spend more time focusing, not on the skills they learn, but on the
lessons they plan, the papers they grade, and the discussions they
lead in their classes. TAs do not necessarily attend graduate
school with the intention or desire of becoming a professor.

The university’s frantic response to the strike ("Who’s going to
grade finals? Who’s going to grade papers?") illustrates the
enormous impact teaching assistants have in the undergraduate
courses they "apprentice" for.

Indirectly, the university’s treatment of TAs reflects the low
priority undergraduate education occupies. In its attempt to create
a nationally renowned research institution, UCLA has forced certain
courses to become more dependent on the efforts of teaching
assistants, so as to free up professors who carry out research. By
not recognizing TAs as legitimate employees, the university
trivializes a significant aspect of what they do – teach.

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