Not enough for the size of the load, she says. She and her colleagues at the Pennsylvania school voted earlier this month for representation by the American Federation of Teachers in hopes of getting better pay and benefits. Temple is just one of dozens of campuses where students are embracing unions, though the school is challenging the election with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board. Graduate students at the private University of Pennsylvania announced an organizing drive last week. Michigan State graduate assistants voted last week in favor of union representation and organizing also is under way at Penn State.
College campuses are fertile ground for unions trying to recharge the labor movement.
United Auto Workers and the American Federation of Teachers are among those courting students. About a third of the work force, or 45 million people, are under age 35. Just 9 percent of this age group belongs to unions, compared with 13.5 percent of the entire work force, but people age 18 to 29 have a more favorable opinion of organized labor than other workers, according to an AFL-CIO survey. Renewed union efforts aimed at college campuses come as universities, driven by the bottom line, increasingly replace tenured classroom instruction with part-time faculty and graduate students. Those issues, combined with a landmark decision in November by the National Labor Relations Board allowing New York University graduate teaching assistants to unionize at a private school for the first time, are fueling a high-profile labor movement on both public and private campuses.