Cornell University President Hunter Rawlings today (Sept. 4) issued a statement to the campus community about graduate student unionization:

"It is a pleasure to welcome you back to campus, and to wish you a productive and enjoyable academic year. We have an outstanding group of new students this fall and anticipate a lively academic environment on campus, beginning with our freshman reading assignment of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein .

"This summer we concluded an agreement with a group wishing to represent Cornell graduate students through a union, and I think it important to inform our entire community about the agreement and its implications for a graduate student election scheduled for this fall. This is a serious matter not only for our graduate students, but also for the faculty, staff and undergraduate student body. It is essential that all Cornellians educate themselves about the issues involved in this election. I will in this letter outline what happened this summer, what will occur this fall, and the administration's view of the choice confronting our graduate students. For a readily accessible source of information throughout the fall term, please consult the following website: http://www.gradschool.cornell.edu/grad/union.html . Information on this subject will also be available at the web site maintained by the Provost's Office: http://provost.cornell.edu/union.htm .

"In November 2000, a three-member panel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled in a case involving New York University that graduate students who work as research and teaching assistants at private colleges and universities have the right to form unions to negotiate wages, benefits and other conditions of employment. This recent decision reversed a long-standing NLRB policy holding these graduate assistants to be students and not employees. At a number of private universities graduate students have discussed whether or not they want to engage in

collective bargaining. Graduate students at Columbia and Brown have already held elections to determine whether or not they wish to unionize, but their election results have been sealed because the universities have challenged the right of graduate students to unionize by appealing the current NLRB policy.

"Here at Cornell we have taken a different approach. On May 14, 2002, the Cornell Association of Student Employees (CASE), affiliated with the United Auto Workers union, filed a petition to be recognized as the legal bargaining agent for student employees at Cornell. With no legal or procedural delay, Cornell negotiated with CASE/UAW in June and July to define a bargaining unit of student employees who have a well-defined 'community of interest.' Cornell concluded with the union an agreement settling the nature of the bargaining unit, which includes all graduate assistants under the jurisdiction of the graduate school, about 2,200 in number. These students will vote in an election on Oct. 23 and 24, 2002. A simple majority of those voting will determine whether or not all graduate assistants at Cornell will be represented by the CASE/UAW union. Cornell reserves the right to reconsider its position, however, if the full NLRB substantively alters the current NLRB policy.

"Now to the question of the administration's view of the issues at stake in this election. First, I should emphasize that Cornell has a long and strong tradition of research, teaching and participation in the labor movement. Our School of Industrial and Labor Relations is the leader in the field of labor education, and has very strong ties with labor groups throughout New York state and the nation. In addition, groups of our employees belong to six unions, and Cornell's relationships with those unions have been excellent for many years.

"This election, in my view, compels us to confront important questions: Should graduate students, who come to Cornell primarily for an education and advanced research and scholarship, establish a union for the purpose of collectively bargaining their stipends, health coverage and other forms of financial support? Is a union in the academic center of Cornell in the best interests of Cornell's graduate students? Is it in the best interests of the University?

"I believe that our graduate students choose to come here in order to work with excellent faculty members in an environment that promotes learning and research. The student/teacher relationship is fundamental to our enterprise, and it benefits most from flexibility, individuality and inventiveness. Graduate students should be able to maximize their opportunities for learning and for teaching and research; departments and graduate fields should be able to compete effectively with their peers at other universities in recruiting and retaining the best graduate students. Graduate students and faculty members are best able to make the numerous decisions affecting employment in their departments, fields, schools and colleges where contact between responsible graduate students and faculty is most direct, and where expertise is the greatest and incentives are the strongest."Unionization will, in my view, inevitably introduce standardization and complicate the relationship between graduate students and their faculty mentors. If a majority of the graduate students who participate in the election vote in favor of becoming members of the United Auto Workers, the university – that is, Day Hall – will negotiate a contract that will have to cover all graduate assistants at Cornell, in all colleges and departments. Departments may well lose both their ability to make individual decisions regarding compensation and related matters at the college or departmental level, and their ability to respond to different graduate students' often quite different needs and goals. Issues formerly decided on the basis of the unique circumstances of each graduate student may be governed in the future by a single collective bargaining contract. Every graduate assistant will be required to conform with the rules of that contract.

"In addition, it is important to note that it is exceedingly difficult to define 'compensation and other conditions of employment' clearly and rigorously enough to exclude all academic aspects of a graduate student's life from the collective bargaining process. Although we have a sidebar clause in our agreement with the union affirming that academic issues will not be bargainable in a contract, it will not always be easy to disentangle academic from employment matters. Even with the best of good will on both sides – and where there is collective bargaining, inevitably, there are 'sides' – Cornell may well find itself dealing with a wide range of issues at the bargaining table as time goes along.

"For many years at Cornell the representative Graduate and Professional Student Assembly has ably voiced the concerns of graduate students. It has conducted regular meetings with the Dean of the Graduate School and the rest of the administration, it has influenced policy and promoted many changes for the better. Cornell stands out among its peers in this record. We have certainly not been able to solve every issue, but when there are differences of opinion, I believe we are better able to work them out in the collegial atmosphere we have established over many years than in a formal, at times adversarial, relationship that includes an organization external to the university. If the union is successful in securing exclusive representation rights, the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly will continue to represent the interests of graduate students on all matters not covered by the negotiated contract, but now the voice of the graduate students will be bifurcated.

"Competition with peer institutions drives the size of graduate student stipends, and it always will. Cornell has been proactive in addressing graduate students' need for competitive stipends, and has committed itself to strong benefits policies after extensive consultation with graduate students themselves. The real issue for graduate students, I believe, is this: if concerns arise about compensation and working conditions, is unionization the best solution?

"In considering this matter, as well as all others, it is critical that we do what Cornell does best: educate our community. Since this issue affects potentially everyone on campus, we should all become as well informed as possible. Our dean of the Graduate School, Sunny Power, is holding regular information sessions for faculty members, and would be pleased to respond to invitations from departments and graduate fields for additional meetings. The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly and the Faculty Senate are sponsoring fora and debates on the subject, and I am certain that CASE/UAW will disseminate information widely on campus this fall. Whatever your views on student unionization might be, please take the time to inform yourself further about this important issue in the coming weeks. We hope that all of our graduate assistants will vote in an election that has such significance for the entire campus not only today, but also for many years to come."