By snoadmin
The California State University system and United Auto Workers Local 4123 are at odds. The union, which represents graduate, teaching and instructional students assistants, insists the CSU agree to a contract that waives tuition costs for its employees. The CSU maintains that doing so would be financially unfeasible.
Thanks to widespread unionization, 18-hour workdays and impoverished textile workers needlessly losing fingers are no longer a reality of American labor. Collective bargaining is less the David and Goliath scenario it’s historically been purported to be.
So in this battle of now equally sized giants, who’s right?
We’re not sure, but one thing is, CSU students cannot bear the burden of increased university compensation or even worse a labor strike — something the union hasn’t ruled out.
“[Academic student employees] are the only employee group that must pay fees to be employed,” argues Rich Anderson, president of Local 4123.
“The CSU is not proposing to implement fee waivers given the well-documented significant reduction in state funding support that the CSU has experienced over the past few years,” CSU media relations specialist Erik Fallis, retorts.
The CSU only employs academic student employees if they are CSU students. Local 4123 contends that, without tuition fee waivers, this is unfair. How can the CSU make paying tuition, i.e. resigning a large portion of your salary to your employer, a condition of employment?
What the union ignores, however, is the intrinsic value of holding such a job. Graduate assistants teach physics, chemistry and biology labs. Teaching assistants and instructional student employees are given a central role in the education of undergraduates, among other things. One cannot place a dollar amount on this type of real world experience.
If anything, academic student employment is more of an opportunity than a job. It garners valuable experience that will likely be used by these students in future employment ventures.
In response to academic student employees financially struggling, there are specific ways to deal with the inability to pay tuition without financially burdening an already struggling university. Federal aid programs, like FAFSA, could help struggling academic student employees with grants and subsidized or unsubsidized loans.
After all, implementing tuition fee waivers may result in the university raising fees on its other students, which wouldn’t be cool.
But Anderson says, the union wants “equal pay for equal work,” referring to the University of California. In 2007, UC academic student employees secured a contract that granted them something similar to the tuition fee waivers Local 4123 is bargaining for.
This is really the union’s strongest point. If another public California university can offer tuition fee waivers, why can’t the CSU?
Luckily for us, there are people qualified to answer such questions.
Two long years of bargaining have left the CSU and Local 4123 waiting for the decision of a tripartite fact-finder.
After certification of impasse by the California Public Employment Relations Board, or PERB, bargaining between the two parties was forwarded to a mediator and, then, to the fact-finder.
According to Anderson, the decision will be released “any day now.”
On its website, the union stated it will “support” the decision of the fact-finder “in the spirit of avoiding unnecessary disruption and promoting cooperative labor relations,” but has told the Daily 49er it has not ruled out a strike.
The university is on par with the union’s ambiguity.
“No findings have been presented, and at this point, it would be premature to speculate on any scenario that might occur after a fact-finding report is released,” Fallis told the Daily 49er.
We don’t mean to rain anyone’s parade, but both parties should honor the decision of the fact-finder whether tuition fee waivers are recommended or not.
Resignation of tuition fees for academic student employees is not a matter of fair labor practice. But if the fact-finder recommends its implementation, the CSU should follow suit without raising student fees. After all, the fact-finder is considering the current situation of the university, absent any possible fee increases.
It’s unfortunate that in this battle of giants the only true loser may be the general student population they serve. We’d gladly be compared to David, but at least he had a slingshot.
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