UCI Teaching Assistants Vote to Unionize

After a years-long battle over pay, teaching load and benefits, UC Irvine students learned Thursday that they had won the right to negotiate their work conditions through a union.

Joining a wave of their peers throughout the University of California system, the Irvine students voted 353 to 225 to become part of the United Auto Workers, according to ballots counted Thursday.

The vote marked a momentous occasion for the public university, which for 16 years fended off unionization attempts, leading to the first ever systemwide strike in December. A key loss before a labor board later that month persuaded university officials to give in.

Irvine Chancellor Ralph J. Cicerone vowed Thursday to “abide by their vote” and begin contract negotiations soon with the teaching assistants, tutors and readers--graduate and undergraduate students who help professors shoulder the instructional load.

Student union leaders said they hope to begin negotiating their first contract as soon as next month.

“We’re really happy to see all our members’ hard work pay off after 16 years systemwide of struggling for representation,” said UCI union activist Michelle Grisat, a graduate student of philosophy and feminist theory. “We want to have a fair say over the terms and conditions of our work.”

Grisat said the Student Workers Union/United Auto Workers will begin surveying its 1,031 members shortly to find out what they would like to see in their contracts.

Union leaders hope negotiations yield higher stipends, lighter teaching loads, improved health benefits, a more effective grievance procedure and a possible waiver of all graduate school fees for teaching assistants.

Students from all but two University of California campuses have voted to unionize so far. Ballots from the Riverside and Santa Barbara campuses are due to be counted today.

The mass unionization is a historic turnaround for the UC system, which vehemently opposed the move. The university’s intransigence led to a four-day strike during finals week in December. The change came after a labor board rejected the UC argument that teaching assistants acted more like apprentices than employees and, thus, were not legally entitled to bargaining rights.

Despite the contentious history, a UC Irvine administrator said the students’ decision will be respected.

“I couldn’t say there are any hard feelings,” said Frederic Wan, vice chancellor for research and dean of graduate studies. “This has always been a cordial relationship. We’re all working toward the same goal--a quality education for all graduate students. . . . They know that and we know that.”

Colin Fisher, a doctoral candidate in history, said the vote was a victory over what he called the university’s corporation-like role regarding negotiations. He likened teaching assistants, who stand in for increasingly research-driven professors, to temporary workers hired on the cheap by big companies.

The student workers are paid an average of $13,600 per nine-month academic year for a 20-hour workweek, along with health insurance and discounted student fees. However, many teaching assistants say their actual work load entails far more hours each week.

Teaching assistants do the bulk of hands-on, small group teaching of UC freshmen and sophomores. University officials estimate they account for 24% of the direct student contact hours at UC Irvine. Student union leaders say the percentage is far higher.

“It’s great news,” Fisher said, during a break from dissertation-writing. “Graduate students have really filled the gap for the University of California--helping provide an excellent undergraduate education for a low, low cost. But there hasn’t been any recourse in terms of salary and benefits.”

Fisher predicted that a union contract could benefit all of UC Irvine’s 18,000 students, if smaller class sizes were negotiated. That, he said, would give graduate students more time for their studies and give undergraduates more personal attention from their teaching assistants.