The graduate teaching assistants say they want more job security, better benefits and, eventually, higher wages. Administrators counter that they are students and apprentices, not employees. But labor officials say the recent recognition of a union at the University of Kansas and campaigns under way in California and Illinois are signs of a new trend. Bringing their talents, perspectives into the labor movement is a big plus. The trend in higher education has been for professors to spend more time on research, and less on classroom instruction.
Universities seeking savings hire fewer fulltime professors to replace retirees.
And graduate assistants do more teaching. At the University of Illinois-Urbana, graduate student Nicole MacLaughlin said she picked texts for her English and creative writing courses and graded exams without a professor's help. After three years, she is now on academic leave, working with the AFT to organize fellow teaching assistants. Universities, on the other hand, often argue teaching assistants are training to be professors, so classroom work is like an apprenticeship. As part of the pedagogical experience the graduate students are asked to teach.