Ruquist says that third-year graduate students who serve as TAs in the humanities make between $10,000 and $12,000 a year--a full three thousand dollars less than the starting pay for Harvard's TFs.
"This is below what Yale calculates as the living wage," Ruquist says.
And while Harvard provides tuition leniency and generous medical benefits, Yale has yet to catch up, she said.
"Two years ago, we petitioned the university successfully for a health care plan," she says. "But it's only for single people, and it doesn't cover dental. Some grad students haven't been to the dentist in years because they can't afford it."
Yale, which keeps an extensive collection of documents related to TA unionization on the web site of their public affairs office, argues that to recognize grad students rights to collective bargaining would undermine the purpose of graduate education.
University President Richard Levin said in a statement that the university believes "that unionization is not in the best interest of graduate students at Yale."
It cites the NLRB's own 1972 edict, which held that students who assist a university in furthering its own goals were mere students under labor laws.
Read more in News
Callbacks Place Third in National CompetitionRecommended Articles
-
Harvard TFs Say They Don't Need a UnionAfter the National Labor Relations Board ruled Monday that New York University (NYU) graduate student teaching assistants have the right
-
Defending TF UnionsFirst came vague threats. "Do not become involved in campus politics to your detriment," one professor warned in her written
-
Student TFs Balance Friendships, FairnessFor students in departmental humanities classes, the phrase "teaching fellow" often conjures up a polished third-year graduate student who facilitates
-
Orchestrating the Job SearchL ife for graduate students at any university is far from easy--full of worries about dissertations, career prospects and funding.
-
Why Not the Best?I T'S A scandal. Each semester undergraduates who come to Harvard expecting to be taught by some of the finest
-
The Benefits of Advance HiringOne of the biggest academic miseries facing undergraduates is the prospect of ending up in a section led by a
