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CARY GRANT ENGLISH-AMERICAN ACTOR

Graduate students decide union question in NLRB election

UNION FROM PAGE 1

seen, respected, and safe is a reality that nobody should have to accept,” English told the News. “I’m done accepting it, and that’s why I’m fighting for a union.”

Local 33 has long argued that a contract with the University will drastically improve working and living conditions for graduate and professional student workers. Potential benefits they have advocated for include increased stipend payments, a strong grievance procedure for claims of discrimination and harrassment by supervisors, improved dental and vision coverage, legal protections for international students and guaranteed sick pay.

To best understand the potential path forward, the News spoke to graduate and professional students and faculty, along with organizers from recognized graduate unions at Columbia University, New York University and Harvard University who shared their experiences during contract negotiations and the impact of unionization on their campuses.

What kinds of work do graduate and professional students do?

Teaching is included in graduate students’ funding packages and “is considered part of [an] academic or financial requirement,” per the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences’s site.

Teaching fellow positions are classified as either at Level 10, which goes up to 10 hours a week of work, or Level 20, which goes up to 20 hours a week. Professional school students are appointed at the same stipends and levels as teaching fellows, but are called teaching assistants. After completing their departmental teaching requirement, students might teach as “non-stipend” TFs, whereby they can earn $4,000 or $8,000 per term, depending on whether they are Level 10 or Level 20.

Graduate and professional students can also hold a variety of other employment positions on campus. They might conduct research or perform clerical duties, which can come with intricate power dynamics – many student workers do work for professors they also study under and depend on to graduate.

"For some in academia, student labor, and even post-doc/post-bac labor, is not acknowledged as such because of the “in training” status of those performing it,” John Gonzalez GRD ’24, a GSA representative who co-sponsored a bill to create an ad-hoc committee investigating unionization, wrote to the News.

A potential union would cover most teaching fellows, writing fellows, project assistants, research assistants and teaching assistants from the GSAS and professional schools, with some exceptions.

A wave of academic worker unionization at private schools

Although academic workers at dozens of public universities have successfully negotiated union contracts since the 1960s, only nine graduate and professional worker unions at private universities have secured them.

The bulk of these organizations received recognition amid a recent wave of academic worker unionization, which kicked off in 2016 after the NLRB ruled that private university graduate students have the right to unionize. Additionally, several private school graduate unions have since won elections and currently await contract negotiations.

After the ruling, Local 33 submitted a series of petitions for “microunit” unions by a handful of departments that held successful elections, which University officials challenged in court as undemocratic. They eventually dropped petitions in 2018, anticipating hostility toward labor unions from a more conservative, Trump Administration NLRB.

Four years after the setback, Local 33 has made a striking comeback to campus life, which some attribute to the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic put students’ monetary and lifestyle concerns into a new perspective for many in the community. Gonzalez referred to the pandemic as a “major energizing force” that has lasted beyond its worst days, as issues impacting student workers’ living and working conditions remain.

“Graduate student workers are frustrated by a lack of progress on key issues that affect their quality of life, like the stipend being below cost of living with inflation,” explained GSA president Jo Machesky GRD ’24.

On Oct. 25, Local 33 filed a petition with the NLRB for an official union election after spending the previous two semesters collecting election authorization signatures from a majority of union-eligible graduate and professional students. The University announced it would hold an election four days later.

What happens after the union election?

If a majority of students vote for the recognition of a union, the collective bargaining process begins in which the union, the University and their lawyers negotiate to form an official labor contract.

According to graduate union organizers at Columbia, NYU and Harvard, their contracts addressed several demands raised by their respective unions, many of which were similar to those of Local 33. Some contract wins included increased yearly pay, strong protections for international students, more affordable vision and dental care, a grievance procedure system and more support for the spouses and children of student workers.

Most notably, graduate and professional workers at the three universities received yearly pay raises in their contracts. Ashley Williams, an organizer with the graduate union Student Workers of Columbia, emphasized that Columbia’s contract, like those at the other two universities, also included a retroactive pay raise that added money to wages paid during previous semesters.

Tova Benjamin of NYU’s Graduate Student Organizing Committee union categorized their key contract victories into rights, benefits and protections. At NYU, rights in the contract included affordable health care and terms for parental leave, while benefits included union-funded reimbursements for out-of-pocket health expenses and a tax and legal aid fund for international students.

Ege Yumusak, who organized with the Harvard Graduate Student Union as an international student, described the personal impact of similar benefits in their contract.

“Materially, the results are clear — you can see the last contract’s results, but over a million dollars in benefits Approving the measure would open up a host of possibilities for what this union might look like and how it would function on campus. / Abraham Payne Contributing Photographer

distributed to people every year,” she said. “For myself, there were immigration costs, over $1,000 of which got reimbursed by my union in my last year.”

Local 33’s English told the News she wants to fight for a union grievance procedure that would address and investigate workplace harassment, discrimination or other kinds of adversity. At NYU, Benjamin said that she investigates such working conditions, brings notice to them and advocates for the students involved through her position as a union unit representative.

If a contract is secured, actively working graduate and professional students covered in the collective bargaining unit must pay dues or agency fees, which may cover a variety of operational costs. Dues are usually taken as a percentage of wages — at Harvard and Columbia, they stand at 1.44 percent, while at NYU, they stand at 2 percent — through automatic deduction from paychecks.

At Columbia, according to Williams, members included in the bargaining unit during the year — meaning they are actively employed in a union position — receive a bonus in their raises that aim to cover union dues.

Contract negotiations at private universities typically last years after a union yes vote, though some bargaining processes have lasted far longer than others. At Harvard, it took two years for the university and union to settle a first contract after the election, while at Columbia, it took about five. Columbia recognized the union in 2019 after waging a failed legal battle against their December 2016 election victory, and they only reached a contract in January 2022 after three years of contentious negotiating.

Local 33 maintains that an NLRB contract will bolster existing efforts to better the lives of graduate and professional students across schools.

“A union and a contract would provide graduate workers with a sense of security and stability at Yale,” Buğra Sahin GRD ’26, a Local 33 organizer, wrote to the News. “I want to work at a university where all graduate workers advocating for improvements—on the GSA, the GPSS, or through our union Local 33—can work together to make our workplace more just, equitable, and accessible for all of us.”

After polls close on Thursday night, graduate and professional students will wait about another month until election results are announced by the NLRB on Jan 9.

Contact MEGAN VAZ at megan.vaz@yale.edu and MIRANDA WOLLEN at miranda.wollen@yale.edu .

Yale hit with suit alleging discrimination over mental illness

LAWSUIT FROM PAGE 1

protected rights to accommodations. There is no excuse for Yale’s refusal to change their punitive and disciplinary policies.”

Abramson and Hannah Neves ’23 join as undergraduate plaintiffs alongside Elis for Rachael, an advocacy group composed of Yale alumni and the loved ones of Rachael Shaw-Rosenbaum ’24, who died by suicide in 2021. The group’s website lists a slate of specific changes they demand Yale make to its mental health care infrastructure.

This lawsuit follows a recent Washington Post article criticizing the University’s policies for withdrawal and reinstatement. The article led administrators to publicly defend the University’s mental health policies, citing recent efforts to expand mental health care.

Last spring, the News reported that students feel that the withdrawal and reinstatement policies at the time left them with no choice other than to leave Yale in the case of a serious bout of mental illness. The University has since made reforms to its policies, which the lawsuit acknowledges.

The plaintiffs seek injunctive relief, meaning they would like Yale to make further reforms to their mental health policies to remedy the alleged discrimination. They do not seek financial compensation.

Abramson started at Yale in the fall of 2018 and withdrew in October 2019 for mental health reasons. Abramson wrote to the News that the lawsuit is an effort to prevent other people from experiencing the same “agonizing process” that she endured when she withdrew.

According to Abramson, this process included the “denial of accommodations, unreasonable burdens for seeking reinstatement and punitive consequences for withdrawal.”

She wrote she is on the “fortunate end” because, with her family’s support, she could access treatment outside Yale. However, she says University policies are especially harmful to students from backgrounds that may limit access to health insurance, treatment options, familial and financial support or housing outside of Yale.

The lawsuit is class-action, which means it is filed on behalf of an entire group of people, which in this case is “all Yale students who have, or have a record of, mental health disabilities and who are harmed, or reasonably fear being harmed, by the illegal policies and practices challenged in this lawsuit.”

The lawsuit alleges that the University’s mental health policies violate the American with Disabilities Act, the Fair Housing Act, the Affordable Care Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and it seeks class-action status from the U.S. District Court of Connecticut.

Interim Vice President of Communications Karen Peart wrote to the News that the University is “confident” their policies comply with applicable laws and regulations. Nevertheless, she said University leaders have been working on policy changes that are “responsive to students’ emotional and financial wellbeing” and are working to increase supportive resources.

“Yale’s faculty, staff, and leaders care deeply about our students. We recognize how distressing and difficult it is for the student and their loved ones when a student is facing mental health challenges,” Peart wrote on behalf of the University. “When we make decisions and set policies, our primary focus is on students’ safety and health, especially when they are most vulnerable.”

Peart noted that in many cases, the “safest plan” for a student includes involving their parents and family. Peart also noted in her statement that the University has recently simplified the process of returning from a medical withdrawal.

Elis for Rachael organizer Paul Mange Johansen ’88 told the News that the lawsuit was filed largely due to a lack of University response to numerous student reports. He explained there have been six reports from various student groups, including a mental health advocacy group from students at Yale Law School, detailing problems with Yale’s mental health policies over nine years. He characterized student’s requests for policy changes as “very thoughtful” and “not unreasonable,” and he claimed that “very little” has happened in response.

Johansen also expressed appreciation for the students who shared their experiences with mental health at Yale. In addition to the two current students who are plaintiffs, numerous alumni shared their experiences accessing mental health care and withdrawing from Yale.

“I think it takes a tremendous amount of courage as current students to accuse your college of the things that we are accusing them of,” Johansen told the News.

In addition, Johansen said Elis for Rachael has had numerous conversations with Hoffman, which have also led to little change.

Maia Goodell LAW ’06, the lawyer representing the two current students and Elis for Rachael, told the News that Elis for Rachael sent a complaint to the University in early August with her counsel. The complaint aligned with the claims in the lawsuit, but they have not met or discussed the issues in the complaint.

“We all decided, the legal team and the clients, we were happy to keep trying, but it was time to take the next step,” Goodell said.

She added that now that the lawsuit has been filed, the University can either comply with the policy requests or file a motion to dismiss the case if they find the legal claims invalid. Choosing not to file an answer would trigger a significant period of legal argument.

When a defendant argues that the claims are invalid, they would follow the steps of a typical civil lawsuit, Goodell explained. Usually, this briefing does not involve substantial evidence, but some cases lead to a more thorough court argument. Should the case take the court route, it will then go into a discovery period, in which both sides will exchange case-related documents and information and perform depositions.

After the depositions, the case would go to trial. At any time during this process, however, either parties can reach a settlement or choose to engage in a structured negotiations agreement. Negotiations involve both parties coming together to plan a way of resolving the claims without going through a trial.

Alicia Floyd ’05, another organizer of Elis for Rachael, told the News that one of the main goals of the lawsuit is to force the University to listen more directly to the experiences of students.

“Our top priority is to compel Yale to listen to students and hopefully in the process, give them some practice and improve their skills for the future going forward,” Floyd told the News. “We’re definitely in this for the long haul.”

Goodell explained that this is one of the reasons this was filed as a class-action lawsuit.

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure explain the criteria for a judge to deem a class as valid, which include size and similarity across the group, among other traits. If the class is deemed invalid, the case is typically dismissed.

The legal team, according to Goodell, has spoken with a number of students in the course of an “extensive investigation” of potential claims and continues to welcome speaking with Yale students who may be affected by issues raised in the complaint.

“We’d love to hear from people who are having these kinds of experiences on whatever their perspectives are,” Goodell said.

Johansen also added that the lawsuit does not preclude other efforts Elis for Rachael is involved with.

Floyd and Goodell both emphasized that the lawsuit is not about animosity towards Yale, but instead an effort to make Yale better. Floyd described the lawsuit as only a “piece of the larger puzzle” for mental health advocacy.

“Students have rights and there are legal means to approach students not having those rights upheld,” Floyd said. “But there are other things that we’re looking to do. We want it all for students.”

The discourse around Yale’s policies is part of a larger conversation about mental health at higher education institutions.

In 2018, Goodell helped file a similar class-action lawsuit against Stanford University, which accused the school of forcing students with mental disabilities off campus and treating them like a “legal liability.” Stanford settled in 2019, agreeing to give students a greater say in whether to take a mental health-related leave of absence. For students who choose to remain, Stanford agreed to provide disability-compliant accommodations.

Some say the Stanford settlement did not extend far enough. Harrison Fowler, a student plaintiff in the Stanford case, told the Washington Post that while their lawsuit brought attention to the problem and prompted some policy change, problems still persist. Fowler cited a friend who recently checked into a Stanford hospital and had no choice but to take a leave of absence.

Separately, U.S. Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts sent a letter to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and Attorney General Merrick Garland asking the federal government to issue new guidance to prevent colleges from forcing students to take involuntary medical leaves of absence. He asked for detailed responses on the issue, and relevant data, by Dec. 20 and expressed a need for urgent action given the rapidly rising numbers of mental health crises reported at colleges.

The case against Stanford was brought on the behalf of Stanford Mental Health and Wellness Coalition by the Disability Rights Advocates in San Francisco.

Contact ANIKA SETH at anika.seth@yale.edu and SARAH COOK at sarah.cook@yale.edu .