Posts tagged graduate student
Cornell University Graduate Student Files Federal Charges Seeking End to Union Boss Control Over Graduate Students
July 14, 2025 // Student case attacks Obama-era federal labor board ruling that exposed graduate students to union boss power
No, Unions Aren’t Having a Resurgence—and That’s Good for Workers
May 9, 2024 // Introducing more competition to the private sector union business model could help. For that, my colleague Liya Palagashvili suggests ending the exclusive-representation clause that "provides government-granted monopoly status to a union supported by 51 percent of an employer's workers, giving it the sole authority to negotiate. This means that if some workers want a different union—for example a newer one that might raise the bar in terms of what it can offer—they are out of luck." Today, these workers aren't allowed to engage in any negotiations with their employers, and they still have to pay the original union's fees.
Penn grad student workers vote to unionize after 2 decades of advocacy
May 7, 2024 // The Graduate Employees Together University of Pennsylvania, also known as Get-UP, announced Friday that just over 1,900 of the 3,700 eligible voters turned out last week, with 95% voting in favor of joining the United Auto Workers union, which represents several other graduate student unions at colleges across the country.
Dartmouth graduate student workers strike; Clash with administrators over pay and health care
May 3, 2024 // The union representatives said two-thirds of graduate student members are rent-burdened and need better health care benefits.
Rutgers Unions Sued Over Strike; Case Seeks National Impact
March 19, 2024 // The student’s lawyers are asking a judge to let the suit become a class action case that could pit 67,000 Rutgers students against the unions. The lawyers estimate the total damages at $150 million, and say they want the lawsuit to have national impact. “This case is simple and straightforward: 67,000 students were denied a week of the education they paid for because the unions chose to undertake a knowingly illegal strike,”
Vanderbilt Graduate Workers United rally for unionization, higher stipends and affordable housing
February 19, 2024 // The protest marked the first day of VGWU’s public union card campaign as the group, in partnership with United Auto Workers, advances its push to unionize.
Potential Strike from CSU Staff and Faculty?
October 6, 2023 // The demands include but are not limited to, a 12% salary increase, extended paid maternal leave (16 weeks rather than 10), lactation stations, a managed course cap so the staff’s workload is not too overwhelming, improved health and safety regulations, and gender neutral restrooms. All demands have been denied by the CSU system; in fact, according to Professor Jeffrey Newcomb, the East Bay Chapter CFA president, majority of demands were not even mentioned during the bargaining process and sessions. In return the CSU system initially offered a 4% salary increase for one fiscal year, which has since been increased to a 5% later into the bargaining process.
UC strike energizes unprecedented national surge of union organizing by academic workers
January 3, 2023 // In 2022 alone, graduate students representing 30,000 peers at nearly a dozen institutions filed documents with the National Labor Relations Board for a union election. They include USC, Northwestern, Yale, Johns Hopkins, the University of Chicago, Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Caltech plans to officially kick off its organizing campaign this month, and other academic researchers are working to form unions at the University of Alaska, Western Washington University, the National Institutes of Health and such influential think tanks as the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute. Princeton University, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Pasadena, Caltech, Pardee Rand Graduate School, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Union wins made big news this year. Here are 5 reasons why it’s not the full story
December 29, 2022 // Spirited union campaigns at coffeehouses, on university campuses and at companies such as Starbucks and REI that have long positioned themselves as progressive have brought a new generation of workers into labor's fold. Whether they stay will likely depend on their career prospects in other fields and how they fare in collective bargaining.
Many Rank-and-File UC Grad Student Workers Are Unhappy With Tentative Agreement
December 26, 2022 // More than two-thirds (68%) of Student Researchers United (SRU)-UAW members approved the tentative agreement, while about 62% of UAW-2865 members backed the proposal. Support among SRU-UAW voters ranged from 19% at U.C. Santa Cruz to 86% at U.C. Berkeley Lab. For UAW-2865, U.C. San Diego (73%) showed the strongest support for the agreement, while just one in five U.C. Santa Cruz voters approved the deal.