TAs need to have a voice

Graduate students have a right to be a part of the collective bargaining process.

Those students working as teaching assistants -- TAs -- at such universities like UCLA, UC San Diego and UC Berkeley are protesting the administration's refusal to allow them to unionize.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the University officials and professors at UCLA believe the jobs that the aids perform are a part of their graduate program and is not a formal job position.

TAs argue that because they are performing certain duties and are required to work a minimum of 20 hours each week, they should be able to make decisions along with their mentors and professors.

Not only do these assistants learn to teach and counsel undergraduates, they facilitate a great many duties which keep departments afloat.

Many of these assistants are conducting smaller sessions of larger, professor-organized courses.

These teacher's aides are, in some cases, not only aiding professors with their courses but conducting laboratory sections which supplement lectures.

Many of these aids are grading exams and term papers.

These assistants are expected to take on a bulk of teaching responsibilities even for courses that have full-time professors at the helm.

But because TAs are considered appointees by University officials, they are not considered regular employees and are not able to be involved in the bargaining process -- a process in which the outcomes effect them as well.

Not only are wages at stake but the quality of service that aids are able to provide is something affected in the bargaining process.

The effectiveness of teaching procedures or learning material are also decisions which are made in the bargaining process.

Graduates work closely with the undergraduates by way of tutoring and instructing.

Many times these aids provide the up close and personal instruction that professors of large classes are not able to give.

Therefore, graduate students have a better idea of what is needed by the udergraduates.

Also graduate students are also more in touch with what their successors need because they were recently undergraduates themselves.

By allowing these students to have a say in the educational process, students have a more interactive role.