Frequently Asked Questions

1. What’s the status of efforts by the American Federation of Teachers to form a union for graduate students at Penn?

2. When is the election deciding whether or not to have GET-UP represent graduate students? Who gets to vote ö all graduate students, or just some of them?

3. If I signed a union authorization card am I required to vote for the union?

4. How will the February 26-7 unionization election actually work and what would it take for GET-UP to win?

5. What if I just don’t want to join the union, would the union still speak for me as a graduate student if they win the election?

6. What would it cost me if GET-UP became my union representative?

7. What would GET-UP negotiate on my behalf?

8. How might having a union affect my own graduate education or that of future students like me?

9. How do Penn’s current graduate student stipends stack up against other universities’?

10. What about other benefits and services for graduate students?

11. What’s going on with unionization drives at other universities like NYU, Columbia, Brown and Cornell?

12. Why does Penn’s academic leadership believe that graduate students and graduate education would be ill served by having a union? Is Penn simply anti-union?

13. Why did Penn appeal the NLRB’s November 21, 2002 ruling?