BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 259
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Date of Hearing: June 19, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
Marty Block, Chair
SB 259 (Hancock) - As Amended: March 14, 2011
SENATE VOTE : 25-12
SUBJECT : Higher education: employees.
SUMMARY : Expands the definition of employees under the Higher
Education Employer-Employee Relations Act (HEERA) to include
student employees whose employment is contingent upon their
status as students, specifically Graduate Student Researchers
(GSRs).
EXISTING LAW :
1)Establishes HEERA, which provides a statutory framework to
regulate labor relations at the University of California (UC),
the California State University (CSU), and Hastings College of
Law and their employees. (Government Code § 3560-3599)
2)Establishes the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) as
the State agency that has broad authority to enforce the HEERA
with regard to labor relations activities of UC, CSU, and
Hastings College of Law. (GC § 3513)
3)Defines "employee" as any employee of the Regents of the UC,
the Directors of the Hastings College of Law, or the Trustees
of the CSU under the HEERA. (GC § 3562)
4)Provides that PERB may find a student employee whose
employment is contingent on his or her status as a student is
an employee only if the services he or she provides is
unrelated to his or her educational objectives, or that those
educational objectives are subordinate to the services he or
she performs and that coverage under the HEERA would further
the purposes of the HEERA. (GC § 3562)
5)Allows employee organizations, as defined, to represent
specified employees concerning grievances, labor disputes,
wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment.
(GC § 3562)
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FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, this bill would result in General Fund costs for
collective bargaining of $639,000 in 2012-13 and $6.5 million in
out years and potentially $11.6 million per year for salary
compensation, dependent on collective bargaining, from a
combination of General Funds (15%) and federal grants and
private sources (85%).
COMMENTS : Background . HEERA provides a statutory framework to
regulate labor relations between UC, CSU, and Hastings College
of Law and their employees. HEERA is administered and enforced
by the PERB. PERB's decision in Regents of the UC & Association
of Student Employees, UAW, et al (1998) (PERB Order No. 1301-H)
determined that under the current statutory language, UC's
12,000 Teaching Assistants (TAs), Readers and Tutors had
bargaining rights because their employment is not contingent
upon their status as students, but GSRs, also known as Research
Assistants did not. UC's 6,000 Postdoctoral Scholars may also
collectively bargain under HEERA. The United Auto Workers (UAW)
represents UC's TAs and Postdoctoral Scholars. Student
employees equivalent to GSRs at CSU are covered under HEERA by a
voluntary agreement with CSU.
Purpose of this bill . By removing the limitation that a
student's employment must be contingent upon their status as a
student, this bill would give UC's 14,000 GSRs the ability to
choose to collectively bargain under HEERA. While UC already
extends to GSRs the same health insurance that TAs receive,
other benefits that could be collectively bargained would
include wages, work hours and conditions, grievance and
arbitration procedures, etc.
Difference between GSRs, TAs and Postdoctoral Scholars . As
noted previously, TAs and Postdoctoral Scholars may enter into
collective bargaining agreements under HEERA because PERB has
determined that their employment is not contingent upon their
status as students. Below is a description of these graduate
student employment categories.
1)Teaching Assistants/Associates/Fellows are enrolled students,
whose primary duty of appointees in these titles is assistance
in all aspects of instruction (tutoring, grading, advising,
sectional teaching, sectional laboratory teaching, field work
teaching, limited lecturing). These duties are performed
under the supervision of faculty "instructors of record" who
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are vested with the sole and final responsibility for course
content, work assignments, performance evaluations and grading
in the assigned course. TAs are paid from state funds
(instructional money).
2)GSRs are enrolled students selected for high achievement and
promise as creative scholars and assist faculty members with
scholarly research. Their research may directly relate to
their discipline of study. GSRs may not be assigned teaching,
administrative, or general assistance duties; they are paid
from contracts and grants generated by the faculty.
3)Postdoctoral Scholars are not enrolled students; they are
individuals who have recently completed a doctoral degree, who
seek additional scholarship and continued research training.
The Postdoctoral Scholar conducts research under the general
oversight of a faculty mentor in preparation for a career
position in academe, industry, government, or the nonprofit
sector.
Do GSRs move between employment categories ? According to
information provided by UC, at UC Berkeley in 2002-12, 18% of
graduate students were employed only as a GSR; 22% of graduate
students were employed as a GSR and spent one to two semesters
employed as a TA; 28% of graduate students were employed as a
GSR and spent three or more semesters employed as a TA; and 32%
of graduate students were employed only as a TA. UC Berkeley
notes that the GSRs who served as TAs usually did so at the
beginning of their studies. GSRs are often recruited and
enrolled specifically for research, but departments will require
one or two semesters as a TA in order to meet the instructional
needs of that department. The one or two semesters of as a TA
also tend to occur within the first year or so of their course
of study, with the GSR's focus shifting to research later on.
Arguments in support . According to UAW, the sponsor of this
bill, graduate students work at UC for five to ten years while
pursuing their PhDs. They frequently move in and out of the TA
union, since they are employed as both TAs and GSRs during their
time at UC. This movement between jobs creates a lack of
continuity, with the same group of workers having unequal rights
and benefits from one term to the next. When student employees
work as RAs, the contractual rights they have when they work as
TAs disappear. They lose child care subsidies, family leave,
workload protections, job security rights, contractual redress
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for non-discrimination, and health and safety, grievance and
arbitration procedures and much more.
Arguments in opposition . UC states, "SB 259 would
fundamentally change the relationship between faculty and GSRs
from academic mentor-mentee to one of employer-employee."
"Research is not 'work' in the traditional employment sense, in
that it does not represent an exchange of wages for services.
Academic research is also unique in that individual discoveries
do not follow a set timeline. Because SB 259 fails to recognize
these distinctions, the time that GSRs devote to their
dissertation research could be in direct conflict with the
workload provisions of a union contract. "
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Alameda Labor Council
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
California Faculty Association
California Labor Federation
California Nurses Association
California School Employees Association
California State University Employees Union
Committee of Interns and Residents/Service Employees
International Union
International Union, UAW
Los Angeles County Federation of Labor
Orange County Labor Federation
Sacramento Central Labor Council
San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council
San Francisco Labor Council
San Mateo County Central Labor Council
Service Employees International Union
South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council
University Council-American Federation of Teachers
University of California Student Association
University Professional and Technical Employees
Opposition
University of California
SB 259
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Analysis Prepared by : Sandra Fried / HIGHER ED. / (916)
319-3960