ROLLA � The union representation election set for Monday and Tuesday on the University of Missouri�s Columbia campus won�t alter the administration�s decision to not recognize graduate students as employees, interim Chancellor Hank Foley said Friday.

In an interview before Friday�s session of the Board of Curators, Foley said he has tried to address every concern raised by graduate students since they began organizing during the fall semester. The election results will be watched closely, he said, but the courts ultimately must decide the graduate workers� employment status.

�I consider it a straw poll more than an official tally,� Foley said. �It is important for the League of Women Voters to tell us how many students voted as well as what the percentages for and against are, and then we will take it from there.�

From 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, graduate assistants will vote at polling stations in the Memorial Union and the MU Student Center. They will decide whether the Coalition of Graduate Workers, associated with the Missouri National Education Association, will become their bargaining agent.

Foley said he has tried to keep talks with coalition leaders respectful and congenial. �I am not trying to go to war with these kids,� he said.

Connor Lewis, coalition co-chairman, reacted strongly to Foley�s statements, challenging both his description of the election and his characterization of graduate assistants.

�This is a troubling indication of the way the university views this and in a very condescending way,� Lewis said.

Lewis is 27 and married, he said. Many of his colleagues have children.

�He sounds like a parent scolding indulging kids instead of two equals coming to sit down and work on something mutually beneficial,� Lewis said.

The university has refused to recognize that graduate assistants are employees. Graduate students who are hired as teaching or research assistants receive a stipend, a tuition waiver and university-paid health insurance.

After the university announced in August that it would stop providing the insurance, graduate assistants formed the Forum on Graduate Rights as an advocacy group.

The forum members became the core of the unionization efforts. The decision on insurance was reversed, and no changes will be made until after the academic year that begins in September. In January, Foley announced that minimum stipends for doctoral students with 20-hour assistantships would increase to $15,000 on July 1 and to $18,000 in July 2017.

�We�ve done all the things they�ve wanted and more, so we are trying to walk a fine line of saying, �We don�t think you need the union,� � Foley said.

His last meeting with graduate assistant leaders was April 8, the same day he issued an email expressing surprise at the decision to hold a vote, Foley said. He thought the coalition was going to seek a court ruling on the employment status of graduate assistants first, he said.

�That is why I was so surprised when I heard they were going to have a mock election on this or a mock vote, because I had thought we had all agreed that they were going to seek guidance and that we were going to see what would happen,� Foley said.

The vote is not a mock election or a straw poll, Lewis said.

�What this is is a democratic election on union representation following all the state and federal best practices for an election,� he said.

Interim UM System President Mike Middleton said he, too, would be watching for the election results but that it would not change how the system administration views graduate assistants. Whether they are legally considered employees of the university is not settled, he said.

�I would hope that we could solve all their issues without adding a layer of people to talk to about it � an outside group, the union,� he said.

This article was first published online on Friday, April 15, 2016 at 6:34 p.m.