FAQ

We are student workers at Teachers College unionizing in order to improve our teaching, research, and employment experience at TC. Our work is pivotal to the educational mission of TC. However, we lack basic enforceable rights in the workplace, a guaranteed living wage, and other necessary protections. By forming a union, TC student workers are democratizing our workplace. Gaining legal recognition for our union will give us more rights and the power to make improvements at work, will legally protect our rights and policies, and will make transparent the terms and conditions of our employment.

Forming a union with the United Auto Workers (UAW) in particular means joining tens of thousands of researchers and other higher education employees who are already UAW members. Other academic workers organized with UAW including Columbia student workers and postdocs as well as UC student workers and postdocs, Harvard grad workers, NYU grad workers, and many more.

A union is an organized group of employees who join together to improve the working conditions of all through the power of collective bargaining. Unions are democratic organizations that are made by, of, and for the group of employees they represent (in our case, Teachers College student workers). By forming a union here at TC we gain the right to negotiate improvements and secure benefits in an enforceable contract with the university that cannot be unilaterally changed. We also gain more power to influence other decisions that affect us. For example, unionized academic workers played a role in helping reverse recent federal government rules targeting international student workers.

As student workers, we do a large amount of the teaching, grading, grant-winning research, and administrative work at Teachers College. By coming together to form a union, we will have the opportunity to negotiate for livable wages, ensure adequate benefits, establish clear workload expectations, and establish consistent and transparent employment policies through collective bargaining. We believe that through collective bargaining, we can make Teachers College a better environment for everyone.

We aim to form a union of all TC student-workers. This includes Fellows (such as Graduate Fellows, Doctoral Research Fellows, and Administrative Fellows), Teaching Assistants, Research Assistants, Course Assistants, interim hourly student workers, federal work study student workers, and instructors.

By organizing together as student workers who perform work in support of our university’s academic mission, we are joining hundreds of thousands of student workers at universities across the country who have already won unions like ours.

Not sure if you’ll be included in our union? Email us and tell us about your position, and we will be happy to let you know!

Collective bargaining is a process, protected by federal law, that moderates the power imbalance between employees and their employer. It is easy for an employer to ignore an individual employee’s concerns, but when the employees come together to form a union, we have the collective strength to make ourselves heard. Forming a union will give us the right to collectively bargain with TC’s administration.

Under collective bargaining, TC student workerselect peer representatives to negotiate as equals with the administration. These negotiations result in a proposed contract called a tentative agreement which guarantees the terms and conditions of employment forstudent workers employed as Fellows, TAs, RAs, CAs, AFs, interim hourly workers, and federal work study workers. All student workers will then be asked to vote on the tentative agreement. If approved, the tentative agreement becomes a legally-binding contract.

Through collective bargaining, thousands of academic employees have successfully negotiated improvements in their wages, benefits, job security, leaves, protections against harassment and discrimination, and many other terms and conditions of their employment. Without collective bargaining, Penn has unilateral power to change our working conditions. We cannot bargain as equals over stipends, health insurance, a fair grievance procedure for addressing harassment and discrimination or other issues.

To name just a few gains, academic workers at other universities have successfully negotiated higher wages, better benefits, protections from harassment, discrimination, and abusive conduct, protections from unfair termination, greater support for dependent children, greater support for international employees, and more transparent workplace policies. Critically, these improvements are part of a legally binding contract, which makes them enforceable.

TCSW members voted to affiliate with the UAW several years ago. The UAW is the leading organization in the unionization of private universities, and litigated the 2016 Columbia Student Workers case that opened the sector to unionization. Furthermore, support staff at Teachers College and student workers across the street at Columbia are already affiliated with the UAW. Finally, tens of thousands of academic workers who have unionized with the UAW and won contracts for their workplaces demonstrate a proven track record of success.

UAW is the International Union of United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW). UAW has historically been one of the largest and most diverse unions in North America. In recent decades, 100,000 employees in higher education have joined UAW, making it the single largest union of higher ed academic employees in the US. Academic employees from the University of California, Harvard, UConn,University of Washington, and many other universities have found that joining UAW has allowed them to democratically determine priorities as a workforce and dramatically increase power to win improved rights and benefits through collective bargaining.

Membership dues are important because they provide the resources necessary for effective representation. As part of the UAW, we would not pay dues until we have gone through the bargaining process and voted democratically to approve our first contract. Dues are critical for providing us with independent resources that are not controlled by the University: we use them to ensure we have appropriate legal, bargaining, community and staff support to represent all TC student workers. UAW membership dues are currently 1.44% of gross monthly income and can only be increased by membership action (the membership in a few local unions, for example, have voted to increase dues above 1.44% to have more resources).

No one can be required to become a member of the Union. Since everyone in the bargaining unit must receive all of the benefits of the contract, non-members are typically required to pay a comparable “fair share” fee, so the cost of representation is shared equally. The inclusion of a similar provision at Teachers College would be something we decide as part of our bargaining agenda, would be subject to negotiation with TC’s administration, and contingent on ratification as part of our contract.

Many academic worker unions have such a provision in the contract because it means we have more power and more resources available to enforce our rights under our contract, campaign for the best possible future contracts, and help other academic workers form their own unions. Under the UAW, there is also a one-time initiation fee, which is determined democratically in local union bylaws approved by members.

The value of increased wages and benefits in the first contract typically outweighs the cost of dues, often leading to overwhelming majority approval of those agreements. For example, student workers at Columbia won a minimum of a 6% increase for an after-dues minimum 12-month salary of $43,100 for the 2021/2022 academic year, plus guaranteed salary increases in subsequent years.

Membership dues are important because they provide the resources necessary for effective representation.  In the UAW, we do not pay dues until we have gone through the bargaining process and voted democratically to approve our first contract. Dues are critical for providing us with independent resources that are not controlled by the institute: we use them to ensure we have appropriate legal, bargaining, community and staff support to represent all student workers. UAW membership dues are currently 1.44% of gross monthly income and can only be increased by membership action (the membership in a few local unions, for example, have voted to increase dues above 1.44% to have more resources).

No one can be required to become a member of the Union after we have a contract. In most contracts, since everyone in the bargaining unit must receive all of the benefits of the contract, non-members are generally required to pay a comparable “fair share” fee, so the cost of representation is shared equally. The inclusion of a similar provision at Teachers Collegewould be something we decide as part of our bargaining agenda, would be subject to negotiation with Teachers College, and contingent on ratification as part of our contract.

Most student worker unions have such a provision in the contract because it means we have more power and more resources available to enforce our rights under our contract, campaign for the best possible future contracts with the administration and help other academic workers form their own unions. Under the UAW, there is a one-time initiation fee, which ranges from $10 to $50 and is determined democratically in local union bylaws approved by members.

The value of increased wages and benefits in the first contract typically outweighs the cost of dues, often leading to overwhelming majority approval of those agreements.