Grad student union efforts take a hit

A House of Delegates committee shot down an attempt to grant collective bargaining rights to graduate students last week, but student leaders are not giving up without a fight.

While Graduate Student Government President Laura Moore admitted the bill is effectively dead as written, graduate student leaders are hoping to work with the university system to find a compromise.

If the two sides can agree by Thursday on amendments to make to the Senate's version of the bill, the House would be forced to reconsider the updated version.

"We're optimistic there will be something this year that we can all be happy about," Moore said in an e-mail. "If not, we will keep pushing forward, and depending on how things go this year, we may have to introduce legislation next year."

University System of Maryland Chancellor Brit Kirwan said he is glad to see that the bill was rejected. He testified against the bill, saying that collective bargaining would "fundamentally change the relationship between the graduate students and the faculty."

He said the graduate students are students first and employees second, and allowing them to unionize would reverse those roles.

However, the vote is not an indication that lawmakers aren't aware of the hardships graduate students face, said Del. John Bohanan (D-St.Mary's), who serves on the committee that voted on the collective bargaining bill.

Bohanan said that he, along with the university administration, "recognize that students have been treated unfairly in the past," but he said "the new provost is well aware of the issues and is trying to remedy them."

Moore said she doesn't like hearing that argument because former Provost Bill Destler was very attuned to graduate student issues, such as high workload and too-little subsidized housing. Moore said Provost Nariman Farvardin is "a great guy and very capable," but that "having our rights recognized doesn't prevent him in any way from addressing the challenges facing graduate students."

She added that the problems are too big for one administrator to fix them, and that graduate students need to be able to sit down with the administration as equals and discuss issues in a fair and open manner.

Moore said she and other graduate student leaders are hopeful that they can come to some sort of compromise with the administration and the Senate, but even if no legislation is passed this session, she is still happy that the bill served as a wake-up call to the problems graduate students face, and she plans to introduce similar legislation next year if needed.

ecksteindbk@gmail.com