Graduate students in the University of Hawaiʻi System may have a clearer path toward unionizing.
A recent decision from the state Supreme Court declared that UH graduate students can receive official recognition as state employees if one of three existing labor unions petition for them. Those unions include Unit 7 with UH faculty, Unit 8 with UH staff, or Unit 13 for miscellaneous state professionals and "scientific" employees.
If any of these groups approach the Hawaiʻi Labor Relations Board (HLRB) to review the case, UH grad students could be officially recognized as state employees and join the existing union.
"The problem this presents now is that no matter what unit we end up in, we’ll end up in a union with our bosses, which will make grievances more difficult as well as contract negotiations — just given the fact that the contract priorities for the different classes of workers will be very different," said Kawenaʻulaokalā Kapahua, chair of Academic Labor United (ALU).
"The faculty members, the university, have very different priorities compared to the graduate assistants. Just given the nature of our work, forcing us into the same union to negotiate together makes it difficult just to the fact that in some ways, our interests will end up being not necessarily contradictory, but it creates a little bit harder of an interaction," Kapahua said.
Although she said it's not ideal, Kapahua explained that receiving acknowledgment as a state worker is a "good first step."
Once graduate students are recognized as state workers, she said it will be easier to convince the state Legislature to approve a union dedicated to graduate students in the future.
In 1972, the Hawaiʻi Public Employment Relations Board, the predecessor to HLRB, ruled against grad students unionizing. Kapahua said the workload of grad students has significantly changed over 50 years, and they could now have a better chance of unionizing.
ALU advocated for House Bill 874 to create a union for grad students this session, but the bill died two months ago.
