By
The Associated Press
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Yale University is raising the stipends for doctoral candidates almost 20 percent next year amid an attempt by graduate students to unionize.
The stipend given to humanities and social science students was increased from $11,500 to $13,700. Some larger stipends will be offered to science students.
Stipends help cover living expenses for graduate students, most of whom teach undergraduate courses while they pursue their degrees.
"This year's unusually large increase is motivated by our desire to remain competitive with other leading institutions that have substantially increased financial aid for doctoral study over the past two years," Susan Hockfield, dean of the graduate school, said in a letter to students and faculty.
The Graduate Employees and Students Organization has been trying to unionize Yale's approximately 2,200 graduate students for several years, citing long work hours and low pay.
Yale has argued that they are students and not employees, and should not be able to form a union. In November, however, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that graduate students at New York University and other private colleges have the right to form unions.
Graduate student organizer Rebecca Ruquist said the raise was a standard tactic that employers use to try to prevent unions from forming.
"When unions try to get recognized, if an employer has the resources and commitment to fight that union, they'll try to do what's necessary to dissuade them from organizing," said Ruquist, a graduate student in French.
A Yale spokesman said that the university increases stipends regularly and that the increase was not an attempt to stop the union.
