Graduate assistants at UNLV are among those at NSHE institutions statewide seeking collective bargaining rights via the United Auto Workers, whose members nationally include roughly 100,000 people working in higher education. (Photo: Michael Lyle/Nevada Current)
Graduate students employed within the Nevada System of Higher Education say they have little recourse when dealing with hostile work environments, low pay, demanding workloads, and financial instability.
Riley Jones, a PhD student studying life sciences at UNLV, said the current system leaves graduate workers at the whims of “our advisers, departments, and graduate colleges to support us when one demand, one responsibility, one job conflicts with another.”
“We need a union so that we have the power to advance our own rights and win a contract that we can use to protect ourselves independently of this flawed system,” said Jones at a rally on UNLV’s campus last week. “We deserve support that is not dependent on departmental politics or changing administrations.”
Nevada Graduate Student Workers, which comprised graduate assistants from UNLV, UNR and the Desert Research Institute, voted in November to unionize. Despite more than 2,100 graduate assistants supporting efforts to unionize, NSHE has not recognized the union.
Graduate assistants, including Jones, gathered Wednesday at UNLV and UNR to describe working conditions at NSHE institutions and call on lawmakers to pass Assembly Bill 191, which would give graduate assistants the right to collectively bargain for better pay and conditions.
The rally was held a week after the legislation received its first hearing at the Assembly Government Affairs Committee.
The bill “gives professional employees the same rights and responsibilities for collective bargaining as other public employees in Nevada,” said Democratic Assemblymember Natha Anderson, AB 191’s sponsor.
The legislation, she said, wouldn’t conflict with the state’s right to work laws and so wouldn’t require any NSHEemployee to be a dues paying member of a union if they don’t want to be.
It would simply “balance” grad school workers “with other employees by covering it in state law, instead of hoping that it’s going to be agendized in a meeting,” Anderson said.
Kent Ervin, a legislative liaison with the Nevada Faculty Alliance, told lawmakers that while collective bargaining is allowed through NSHE’s policy handbook, the language is outdated and doesn’t give the same protections as in state law.
The bill, if passed, would apply not only to grad assistants, but also to academic faculty, administrative faculty, and part-time instructors “if they in the future choose to form a bargaining unit and ask to be recognized,” Ervin said.
Employees would be able to negotiate and seek resolutions of contract disputes through the state’s Government Employee-Management Relations Board.
This “would save time and litigation, a clear benefit to both sides,” Ervin said.
Alejandro Rodriguez, a lobbyist with NSHE, said the system does not have a position on the legislation, but is “fully committed to finding solutions sooner than the legislative process would allow.”
The Vegas Chamber was opposed to the bill and expanding the state’s collective bargaining law.
Nick Snyder, a lobbyist for the chamber, said allowing graduate assistants the ability to collectively bargain “could potentially harm the academic relationship between students and faculty, while also causing disruption in the educational process.”
The committee took no action on the bill.
‘We deserve to have a union’
Speaking at the rally Wednesday, Evelyn Airam, a graduate assistant in the School of Integrated Health Sciences at UNLV, said when surveying other graduate workers throughout the NSHE institutions, they found the same workplace harassment and pay issues.
Airam said that one in four NSHE graduate assistants surveyed said they experienced or witnessed retaliation for raising workplace issues, and that 79% of grad students employed in the system reported they didn’t earn enough to cover living expenses.
She had previously highlighted her own struggles to survive on a $21,500 salary to state lawmakers when speaking in favor of AB 191 at the legislative committee hearing earlier in the month.
“I personally have been forced to skip meals, sell my blood plasma on a weekly basis, and worry if gas in my car was enough to make it to work or classes,” she said during the hearing.
It doesn’t just demoralize the current workforce, but prevents NSHE universities from attracting potential graduate students, she said.
“We must attract and retain top scholars,” Airam told lawmakers. “How can we do that when wages don’t cover rent, when there is no independent recourse for mistreatment, and when GA’s positions are constantly insecure?”
Several graduate students testifying in support of the bill reiterated some of the same concerns around being overworked and underpaid or dealing with unfair treatment from department heads and other faculty.
Work conditions regarding safety and security are also a concern, said Pete Martini, an assistant professor of psychology at Nevada State University and president of the school’s arm of the Nevada Faculty Alliance.
“Regardless of the reasons we come to the table … faculty and graduate students want to argue in good faith,” he said. “Without AB 191 we are bargaining across the table from NSHE while they call balls and strikes.”
Republican Assemblymember Danielle Gallant questioned the aspect of bargaining over pay since students get reduced tuition as a form of “sweat equity.”
In response to students testifying about high workloads with little compensation, Gallant said she often has to work more than 80 hours a week as a business owner and a part-time legislator.
“I know it sucks, but sometimes you just kind of have to grin and bear it. It builds character,” Gallant said with a laugh.
Airam said while most graduate assistants work more than 40 or 50 hours a week – on top of their studies and research related to their graduate program – they are only contracted, and paid, for 20 hours a week.
As an international student, she also has federal restrictions on working outside of campus, making it impossible to get another job — if she had the time for one.
Gallant’s up-from-bootstraps musing notwithstanding, the issues at hand are not about character but “about survival and the basic needs,” Airam said.
NSHE officials say they try to work with students to address individual concerns.
But Jones said graduate assistants need a system that doesn’t resolve workers complaints “on a case by case basis.”
“We’ve been told time and time again that the administration supports us and wants to work with us to fix issues we face,” Jones said. “We deserve to have a union so our power as GAs is recognized.”