Graduate students at several US universities and colleges are trying to form unions, with mixed success. According to the Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions, students already have collective-bargaining rights at more than 20 US schools (see Nature 428, 965; 2004). But is unionizing a good idea? Certainly, teaching and research assistants deserve a say in their pay, work benefits and conditions. But should students engage in collective bargaining and risk potentially unproductive clashes with administrators?

Students at the University of Maryland in College Park are the latest to campaign for worker rights. A state legislator named Jamie Raskin has introduced a bill that would allow graduate students and adjunct professors to unionize at state-funded universities. He is quoted in The Washington Post as saying that graduate students are treated like “migrant workers”. Union proponents say that students who work for professors or teach undergraduates should have a seat at the bargaining table and a say in their working conditions.

A spokesperson from the university counters that students are just that, students, not employees. Perhaps this is an overly rigid stance, meant to save the university money and time at the negotiating table. But unions are not necessarily a positive step for students. The employer–employee relationship differs from that of the teacher–student. The former can be adversarial, and counter to the aims of a graduate student. US students have their hands full just being students, with degrees that can take 6–8 years to complete. They might not have the time or the patience to deal with lawyers and salary disputes that could, after a long struggle, net only minor gains.

Yet in the times of tight budgets and large labs, graduate students have the right to make sure they're not merely cheap labour helping their professor to get tenure, publications or increasingly rare grant money. And graduate student unions can be good for the university — prospective students might see unionization as a positive attribute. But, considering the pitfalls, students should be careful not to focus too much on being employees — the primary aim should be a degree, not a union card.