Planning More Than Lessons

Regardless of any differences in the two institutions’ approaches, Harvard and Yale agree on opposing the unionization of their graduate students.

“Unions are very, very useful in some labor situations, in protecting the rights of workers,” Provost Steven E. Hyman said in an interview last week. “I don’t believe that they make sense for graduate students where individual, collegial interactions seem to be the way to take care of business, as opposed to collective bargaining.”

While Yale’s graduate students—who have unsuccessfully pushed for unionization for more than a decade—constitute a significant proportion of the picketers in New Haven, Harvard’s graduate teaching fellows aren’t nearly as advanced in their own efforts to organize.

But Rebecca J. Spencer, president of Harvard’s Graduate Student Council, said several issues are likely to make unionization a high priority among graduate students in the future.

“Students want to have a clear procedure for hiring,” she said. “I ought to know how I can find out what sections I can teach.”

She also said the University should ensure a correlation between teaching fellows’ salaries and their workloads, a concern crucial to Yale’s unionization drive.

“It’s really something that comes up a lot,” Spencer said of unionization at Harvard. “This is a very important part of their lives.”

Though Harvard graduate students remain in the very early stages of organizing, some formed a committee to round up support for eventual unionization last spring.

Harvard graduate students make about as much as Yale’s graduate students—around $15,000 per year—although Spencer said other matters are far more pressing than pay.

“Salary just isn’t as big of an issue as other things, like hiring practices,” she said.

Hyman credits the University’s treatment of graduate students for the relatively small unionization push.

“I would hope that there is less interest in unionization among our graduate students than at other universities because they would feel that we’re doing our utmost to provide a good situation for them,” he said. “I hope they feel they have an open door to talk to us if they have any concerns.”

Anita Seth, a history Ph.D. student at Yale who chairs the organization spearheading the unionization drive, said the overall tenor of labor-management relations at Yale has contributed to the quicker evolution of its student organizing efforts.

“I think Yale University unfortunately has distinguished itself in the disrespect it shows for the people who do work here,” she said. “There is an employer that is unusually disrespectful and harsh.”

—Staff writer Alexander J. Blenkinsopp can be reached at blenkins@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Elisabeth S. Theodore can be reached at theodore@fas.harvard.edu.