For administrators, talking about graduate-student unionization can be fraught. Take Cornell University, where graduate activists and their faculty allies are clashing with the administration over a pair of messages by a dean.
The dispute raises questions about the proper role of administrators, who almost uniformly oppose collective bargaining by their graduate students, in communications about union elections. When, for example, does an honest opinion about a union’s effects cross into improper coercion? Can an announcement about new benefits appear like it’s trying to influence an election?
While disagreements have played out on other campuses about the proper role of administrators and faculty members when discussing graduate unionization, the debate at Cornell is especially sensitive because a vote in March was so close: 919 voted against unionization and 856 supported it. Eighty-one ballots have been challenged because of voter-eligibility questions, which could swing the election.
Economic prophecies are OK. The question is, what is the basis for the economic prophecy?
According to more than 20 faculty members in the university’s Industrial and Labor Relations School, communications from Barbara A. Knuth, dean of the Graduate School, ran afoul of federal labor law. They penned a letter to President Martha E. Pollack last week about the “coercive” messages that “interfered with Cornell graduate employees’ right to vote in a fair election.”
Their concerns center on two messages. On March 26, the day before voting began, Ms. Knuth in an “Ask a Dean” memo to graduate students, suggested that a union could lead to fewer graduate students at Cornell. The next day, the first day of voting, Ms. Knuth informed graduate students that their cost for out-of-network health care would be going down.
The messages, the faculty members and graduate activists say, were two sides of the same coercion coin: the first, a threat, the second, the promise of a new benefit. “Announcing new benefits close to the time of an election to influence employees to vote against union representation interferes with voters’ free choice,” the letter states.
Cornell declined to discuss the messages from Ms. Knuth. But in a statement, the university called allegations that they violated the law “baseless.” The statement from a spokesman, Joel M. Malina, also suggested that if the union were to file a formal complaint with an arbitrator, Cornell could file its own.
“If needed, the university will vigorously defend itself against accusations of interference,” Mr. Malina said. “Further, while Cornell has chosen not to escalate an adversarial relationship in this case, if allegations are brought claiming violations by Cornell, we will document the union’s improper activities which included subjecting students to direct harassment, voter suppression, and illegal electioneering.”
The union could file a complaint with the American Arbitration Association, the third party that both sides agreed would moderate such disputes. The union has decided to hold off on that route and instead reach an agreement with Cornell. Neither side would disclose details of the negotiations, but holding a new union election is a possibility.
While it appears that the messages may have violated a May 2016 agreement between the university and the union that put limitations on how administrators could communicate about the union drive, the arbitrator would consider many factors in making a ruling, says William A. Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions.
Timing is a big part of determining intent, Mr. Herbert says. Making the health-care announcement on the first day of the election is “a significant factor,” he says.
Another labor-law expert, William B. Gould IV, a former chairman of the NLRB and an emeritus professor at Stanford Law School, agrees. He says the burden would be on the university to demonstrate that the timing of Ms. Knuth’s health-coverage announcement was not connected to the election, perhaps by showing that a similar message went out at the same time the year before. “But in the absence of that kind of defense,” Mr. Gould says, “this would be regarded as the promise of a benefit, which would interfere with the election.”
The message suggesting a reduction in graduate students is trickier, Ms. Gould says. If Ms. Knuth was voicing a speculation, that would violate labor law. If, on the other hand, the projection was based on any data, perhaps a study of the effects of a graduate union on another university, or Cornell’s own economic analysis, the message might be lawful. “Economic prophecies are OK,” Mr. Gould says. “The question is, what is the basis for the economic prophecy?”
The message about the reduction of graduate students “goes to the question of what are the disadvantages of union representation,” Mr. Herbert says. “That would seem to be inconsistent with the written agreement, which said those kinds of letters and emails were not going to be sent out. They could also be viewed as a threat.”
Risa Lieberwitz, a professor of labor and employment law and one of the signers of the letter, says it’s in Cornell’s interest to avoid the perception that it’s trying to interfere with its graduate students’ free choices.
“There is a power relationship between the Cornell administration and its graduate employees, and one has to be extremely sensitive to power relationships,” Ms. Lieberwitz says. “Even if an arbitrator says Cornell’s behavior doesn’t quite cross the line, it doesn’t make Cornell look good to be playing around that line.”
Vimal Patel covers graduate education. Follow him on Twitter @vimalpatel232, or write to him at vimal.patel@chronicle.com.
