Word: ras
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When undergraduate resident assistants (RAs) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst vote today on whether to organize, they should cast their ballots against unionization...
Although the Massachusetts Labor Relations Board ruled in January that undergraduate employees could legally unionize, the UMass RAs should recognize that their position is primarily one of leadership—not of work. While most University employees can and should unionize, RAs are not traditional employees, and their arguments for unionization are not as strong...
...workers in many industries, unions perform the necessary role of bargaining to secure fair pay, benefits and safe working conditions. RAs have argued that they need the protection a union offers in their work—caring for undergraduates. However, UMass RAs are already well paid, receiving a small weekly stipend and subsidized housing in exchange for their 20 hours of work a week. And by highlighting the menial aspects of their work, RAs overlook the fact that their job is not fundamentally about cleaning up after a party, but about counseling and guiding students—a job that...
...UMass RAs do form a union, they will succeed only in changing the relationship between their university and themselves for the worse. RAs currently function as liaisons between the university and students; the tension that often accompanies union negotiations will be detrimental to this relationship. UMass representatives say that if RAs unionize the University may be forced to replace undergraduate RAs with graduate students—a measure that would help no one and would deprive all students of the undergraduate leadership RAs provide. Though some have said this is merely a bargaining tactic by the UMass administration, it appears...
...result of the UMass RAs’ vote will have little effect on Harvard, where proctors and tutors, instead of undergraduate RAs, serve as resident counselors. And of course teaching fellows, whose jobs actually involve teaching and research, should be allowed to form unions. But UMass RAs should recognize that their jobs, unlike the jobs of the autoworkers under whose auspices they propose to form a union, are more about responsibility than reward—and that their concerns should be more paternal than pecuniary...