Go U. Maryland Grad Union!

Some hopeful news from Maryland.
For more info from the organizers, go here.

(Excerpts from)
Grad Students May Get to Unionize
U-Md., Which Doesn't See Them as Employees, Likely to Oppose Bill
By Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 3, 2008

A Montgomery County lawmaker will introduce legislation tomorrow to allow graduate students and adjunct professors at Maryland's public universities to form unions, setting up a legislative battle over an issue that has hit a nerve at campuses across the nation.

Graduate students at the University of Maryland's flagship campus in College Park, many of whom hold campus jobs teaching undergraduates or conducting research for faculty, have partnered with national labor unions and hired an Annapolis lobbyist in the campaign to unionize.

The legislation, proposed by Sen. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Montgomery), would give graduate students collective bargaining rights to negotiate stipend pay, benefits and workloads with university administrators. Raskin said the students should be able to form a union, just like the university's clerical workers, mechanics, janitors and campus police.

"Graduate students are treated like the migrant laborers of higher education," said Raskin, a professor of constitutional law at American University.
...
Although Raskin has persuaded several colleagues to sign on to his legislation, the bill is likely to face opposition from the University of Maryland.

Administrators have not studied Raskin's bill, but university spokesman Millree Williams suggested that they might not support it.

"The University of Maryland-College Park is not opposed to unions," Williams said, reading from a prepared statement. "We have several on campus, and we work quite well with them. Our students, however, are students and not employees, and we don't view them as employees."
...
Supporters argue that by forming a union, graduate students could receive better benefits, which would help the university compete against other institutions in recruiting top-caliber students.
....
Laura Moore, president of the College Park campus's graduate student government, said U-Md. is "losing good prospective graduate students because they can't afford to live on what they're being offered."

Moore said most graduate students working as teaching or research assistants receive a stipend of about $14,000 but spend the vast majority of it on rent.

"The situation for graduate students here is very close to untenable," said Moore, a master's candidate in entomology who helped initiate Raskin's bill.