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From: citrin@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU (Wayne Citrin)
Newsgroups: soc.college,net.cse
Subject: Re: Who teaches CS classes?
Message-ID: <16187@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sun, 19-Oct-86 13:03:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.16187
Posted: Sun Oct 19 13:03:36 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Oct-86 05:11:40 EDT
References: <922@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU>
Reply-To: citrin@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Wayne Citrin)
Distribution: net
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 30
Keywords: TAs, professors, teaches
Xref: linus soc.college:88 net.cse:927

In article <922@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU> andy@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes:
>
>I bring this up because of a survey I read in either net.cse or
>soc.college.  One of the questions was whether graduate students
>belonged to a union.  That didn't make sense to me until I realized
>that graduate students might be supported elsewhere as teachers
>instead of as researchers.
>

I was the one who asked the question about grad student unionization.  
I see no reason why a union should not protect the rights of all grad
student employees, both teachers and researchers.  I agree that there is
more potential for abuses with TA's, and the incipient grad student
employees' union here at UC Berkeley (AGSE), has devoted much of its
attention to the problems of TA's.

Support for this union in the CS department has been lukewarm, I think, for
two reasons.  First, RA's here are paid on a slightly higher scale than
RA's in most other departments.  It was feared that collective bargaining
would lead to lower salaries for us.  I don't think there's much basis for
worry.  Second, the department already has a fairly powerful and activist
grad student association, so that a union would be superfluous.  This
does not seem like a good reason for not supporting a union to help 
less fortunate grad students in otherdepartments.

I'd like to hear from some students at other schools that have grad student 
unions.

Wayne Citrin
(ucbvax!citrin)