Posts tagged Boston University
Boston University Denies It Would Use AI to Replace Striking Teaching Assistants
April 2, 2024 // The university’s response comes after an email to faculty from Stan Sclaroff, dean of arts and sciences. Last week, two days after thousands of BU graduate student workers began a strike, the email made recommendations including using artificial intelligence to better manage course discussions, labs and student feedback. “Neither Dean Sclaroff nor Boston University believe that AI can replace its graduate student teaching assistants, and the assertion that we plan to do so is patently false,” Boston University said in a statement on Friday.
Boston University graduate students go on strike, citing lack of progress in negotiations
March 26, 2024 // At Monday’s rally on Marsh Plaza, organizers were supported by representatives from other labor unions and elected officials, including Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
BU grad workers vote to strike Monday
March 22, 2024 // The Boston University graduate workers union voted Wednesday to go on strike Monday afternoon if they do not reach a contract agreement with the university. The union, which represents roughly 3,000 graduate student workers at BU, voted last week to authorize the strike after a longstanding battle with the university over fair pay and stronger benefits, including health care coverage and child care assistance.
The Newest Union Members Are Undergrads
December 20, 2023 // With help from groups like the Service Employees International Union and the Office and Professional Employees International Union, students consolidated support for elections, contract talks and headline-making protests. Their muscle has surprised longtime observers of the labor movement, some of whom have wondered where, exactly, young adults learned some of the finer points of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. (Part of the answer: Instagram direct messages with organizers on other campuses.)
Push to unionize at college dorms is growing
March 31, 2023 // Colleges have been a breeding ground for illness and social havoc since the pandemic began, and much of the onus has been placed on RAs, who are appointed to shepherd the well-being of an entire floor of younger students. In the past, that has typically meant hosting events, mediating roommate disputes, and perhaps guiding an overserved first-year safely to bed. For this, RAs are compensated with free or discounted housing and meal plans. But in recent semesters, and especially since schools reopened during the COVID-19 pandemic, those responsibilities have ballooned. RAs who spoke with the Globe describe being deputized as “COVID police” to enforce masking and social distance, and wrangling students whose university — or even high school — experience was stunted by lockdowns and remote learning. Several schools later assigned RAs to longer overnight “on call” shifts and additional check-ins with residents.
Graduate Unions: Why Student Workers at University of California, Temple, More Are Striking
March 27, 2023 // HELU was founded in 2021 in an effort to fill those shoes. At a digital summit that July, members of 75 unions and labor organizations convened to draft a “vision platform” laying out everything from their legislative commitments (like Sen. Bernie Sanders’s College for All Act) to their support of student debt cancelation. The endgame is a unified academic labor movement capable of securing public investment and reorienting higher ed to “prioritize people and the common good over profit and prestige.” To date, 130 unions and affiliated groups representing over half a million workers have endorsed the platform. The first step in realizing this vision, says Jaime, who attended the 2021 summit, is to build union density. “Transforming academia is not going to happen in one single contract campaign. We have to organize workers in every single university in order to achieve real change,” he says.
‘It’s about damn time’: College workers organize amid nationwide labor unrest
February 8, 2023 // A historic strike at the University of California kicked things off in November. And the six-week standoff among 48,000 campus workers, a broader surge in labor strikes across industries, a depleted pandemic workforce and a friendlier atmosphere in Washington has culminated in a wave of uprisings.+
Syracuse University grad students want to unionize to improve wages, working conditions
January 20, 2023 // SU plans to increase minimum stipends from $16,980 to $20,000 for master’s student workers and from $16,980 to $22,000 for doctoral students. The pay raises will begin in the 2023-2024 academic year. SU said it is also improving health insurance and child care subsidies for graduate student workers. SEIU already represents about 900 SU workers including custodians, housekeepers, maintenance and good service workers and library technicians.
Yale Union Election Is Latest Move in Campus Labor Renaissance
December 5, 2022 // Unite Here Local 33 previously won a set of elections to represent several Yale academic departments as separate bargaining units before pulling the petitions to avoid the Trump board ruling on the university’s appeal. The union was able to move quickly to an election following the flip of partisan control at the NLRB. The in-person voting will take place a little over a month after the union filed its Oct. 24 representation petition.
BC Graduate Employees Union Rallies For Better Working Conditions
November 8, 2022 // Graduate employee unions from neighboring schools joined BCGEU for the rally right before the Friday BC football game against Duke. Crowds of drunken students and gamewatchers passed as protestors demanded BC recognize their union and negotiate a contract to guarantee better working conditions.