Graduate students
union dies in Senate

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By Treena Shapiro
tshapiro@starbulletin.com

State senators killed a bill that would allow University of Hawaii graduate students to unionize, but may pass a resolution encouraging the university to improve working conditions for teaching assistants.

Senate Education Chairman Norman Sakamoto (D, Moanalua-Salt Lake) said a bill granting graduate students and part-time faculty the right to organize might have merit, but he recommended that it be held until the students come up with a firmer position.

Four graduate students testified in favor of the bill, including Graduate Student Organization President Keikilani Meyer and former president C. Mamo Kim. Lance Collins, chairman of the X Student Initiative, said students were not asking for tenured positions or pay equitable to senior faculty.

"We're asking for the law to demand rational, predictable employment practices," he said.

Rob Vaughan, a graduate student and lecturer in the American Studies Department, pointed out that there are currently 26 unions that bargain contracts for graduate students at more than 60 campuses across the nation.

Vaughan pointed out that graduate assistants and adjunct faculty teach undergraduate courses for a fraction of their tenured faculty counterparts' pay.

"Today, the role of adjunct faculty is virtually indistinguishable from that of their tenured colleagues," he said. "They develop courses, create syllabi, teach and mentor students, and do lab research just as career-track faculty do."

UH administration and the state Department of Human Resources Development opposed the bill.

UH Professional Assembly Associate Executive Director John Radcliffe testified in support of the bill.

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