Nevada’s unionizing graduate assistants gathered at the University of Nevada, Reno and at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to protest yesterday, March 12 about their lack of official recognition from the schools and the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Earlier this month, they rallied about 100 people in support of a Nevada Legislature bill that would put the right to collective bargaining in higher education into state law.
The bill, A.B. 191, got a hearing in the Assembly Government Affairs committee on March 4. The committee hearing was an opportunity for assembly members to get an introduction to the bill and hear testimony about it, but it won’t be moving forward for a committee vote until later.
If it passes the committee vote, it’ll move to a hearing with the whole assembly, putting the bill one step closer to legislative approval — and possibly into law.
But A.B. 191 is facing some critics who say graduate assistants can bargain through existing channels — like the Graduate Student Association — or that working long hours and facing low pay simply come with the job.
The Nevada Graduate Student Workers – United Auto Workers (NGSW-UAW) union won supermajority support among graduate assistants in November, the Sagebrush previously reported. That means a majority of graduate students who work as researchers or teaching assistants at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the Desert Research Institute or University of Nevada, Reno support the creation of a labor union to bargain for their interests at work.
What’s the hold up to union recognition?
The union, NGSW-UAW, has been building momentum for over a year, graduate assistants explained during testimony for the bill.
Despite winning supermajority support in November, and announcing in January that a majority of Nevada’s legislators supported their cause, the union has struggled to get official recognition from the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE), the governing body that oversees public colleges and universities in the state.
Part of that is because university employees, including professors and graduate assistants, don’t have the same rights as other public employees, according to Assemblymember Natha Anderson, who represents District 30.
“Our faculty and graduate assistants are the largest group of Nevadan public employees who do not have that right [to bargain] currently,” Anderson explained.
Clay Renshaw, a graduate assistant at the University of Nevada, Reno’s chemistry department, said that without the passage of A.B. 191, recognition for the union would be impossible.
“We did meet with NSHE administration and some of the Board of Regents and university admin last Friday, and the NSHE meeting was pretty disappointing,” Renshaw told the committee. “They said there is no current policy in order to recognize our union and the bill would have to be passed for that to happen.”
Instead, explained Pete Martini, an assistant professor of psychology at Nevada State University, NSHE has no obligation to bargain with employee unions — and no third party to mediate an agreement.
“Faculty and graduate students want to bargain in good faith and without A.B. 191, we’re bargaining across the table from NSHE while they call balls and strikes,” Martini said in remote testimony from Las Vegas. “We can’t get NSHE to listen to us. There is no recourse in NSHE code.”
Martini was one of several supporters of the bill from the Nevada Faculty Alliance, an independent organization for professors at Nevada colleges.
In addition to opening the door for graduate assistants’ bargaining efforts, it would also give faculty the opportunity to do the same if they chose.
NGSW-UAW members and supporters stand during the committee hearing March 4.
What are graduate assistants saying?
About 100 people came to the committee meeting in support of the bill across hearing rooms in Carson City and Las Vegas, according to committee chair Venicia Considine, the assembly member who represents District 18. Dozens were graduate assistants in NGSW-UAW gear.
Graduate assistants spoke out about toxic work environments in research and untenable lives on what they say isn’t a living wage.
Mia Swain, a graduate assistant in the University of Nevada, Reno’s biochemistry department, told the committee she had to switch labs in her fourth year as a GA. She said her supervisor regularly belittled her and other GAs and threatened to fire workers in front of their peers.
“Ultimately, I was fired without recourse and switching labs meant forfeiting years of research progress and significantly delaying my career,” Swain said. “The relentless stress also resulted in chronic health issues that I’m still receiving treatment for. Many in the department are aware of this problematic treatment, yet the university has not taken meaningful action to address the issue.”
Kelley Rodriguez, a graduate assistant in the university’s chemistry department, told the committee she’d had to switch labs twice for similar reasons.
“In one lab, my supervisor fired me while I was suffering a major health issue,” Rodriguez told the committee. “This supervisor is a well-known bully and known to lash out at GAs.”
A grad student sports NGSW-UAW gear shortly after the March 4 hearing.
Assembly member says ‘grin and bear it’
Danielle Gallant, the assembly member who represents District 23, told graduate assistants that she agreed the power imbalance was “off” at universities in the state because of her own experience as a research assistant, but was hesitant to agree that salary should be a part of negotiations.
“I got a reduced tuition and I believe you guys do as well, because you guys are doing some ‘sweat equity’ at least,” Gallant said.
Gallant added that working 40-60 hours a week is hard, but 80-hour workweeks are normal in her household.
“You have to grin and bear it, it builds character,” Gallant said.
Evelyn Airam, a graduate assistant at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, stressed that as an international student, working 80 hours to make a living isn’t even possible for her.
“The federal government does not allow international students to 1) work more than twenty hours and 2) to work outside campus,” Airam said. “…yes, character has been built, but it’s more than just that. It’s also being able to go to school and not just have to think about survival and basic needs.”
NSHE had not taken an official position on the bill at the time of the March 4 hearing, according to Alejandro Rodriguez, its director of Government Relations.
Peregrine Hart can be reached via email at peregrineh@unr.edu or on Instagram @pintofperegrine.
