Posts tagged graduate student union
Op-ed: Stanford’s Graduate Student Union Tries to Stifle Dissent
September 4, 2025 // At the University of Chicago, graduate students in a similar position have taken their union to federal court, arguing that forced support of the union violates their constitutional rights. In Graduate Students for Academic Freedom v. Graduate Students United, the plaintiffs—including Jewish students—say they are being compelled to fund a union that promotes the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, a stance they view as antisemitic. The graduate unions at both Stanford and Chicago are registered as local chapters of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, a national union that funds progressive activism.
Will Sussman: Columbia Students Should Decertify Their Union
August 5, 2025 // Columbia students are fed up with their union’s focus on radicalism over bread-and-butter issues. “As a Jewish Israeli student at Columbia, the union has done absolutely nothing for me,” said Alon Levin, a graduate student in electrical engineering. “I have heard more blatantly racist and discriminatory language from them than anything that would remotely resemble aiding me in, say, addressing my cost of living or my health insurance concerns.” The problem with graduate student unions is not limited to Columbia, as I learned at MIT.
UVM and grad student union continue legal clash over union size
February 26, 2025 // The latest twist in the legal battle came Friday, when the Vermont Supreme Court reversed a ruling by the Vermont Labor Relations Board that affirmed the rights of predoctoral fellows and predoctoral trainees at UVM to join Graduate Students United. Predoctoral fellows and trainees are graduate students who often teach and perform research for the university, but receive outside financial support for their work, usually through grants and stipends. They represent almost one-tenth of the 600 member union.
Lawsuit: UC Berkeley Union Targeted Israeli Jews for discrimination, harassment
January 28, 2025 // Passing anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) resolutions Creating an apparent “hitlist” of Jews and those with Jewish and Israeli ties on UC Berkeley’s Board of Regents Ignoring union rules and procedures to advance an anti-Israel agenda Segregating Jewish union members by withholding information and opportunities given to other union members
UVM graduate students take initial steps to form union
September 19, 2024 // The GSU represents more than 600 graduate student workers at UVM. They are following in the footsteps of other groups unionizing on campus, including faculty and staff. The University of Vermont estimates that at least 1 in 5 graduate students are food insecure.
Jewish MIT students sue union, say they are forced to pay dues to anti-Semitic organization
April 2, 2024 // “Jewish graduate students are a minority at MIT. We can’t remove the GSU or disabuse it of its antisemitism,” Sussman wrote. “But we also can’t support an organization that actively works toward the eradication of the Jewish homeland, where I have family living now.” Sussman and his colleagues initially sought recourse through non-legal channels, sending letters to the union asking for an exemption. UE allegedly denied these requests, however, writing in their reply to Sussman that “no principles, teachings or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees to a labor union.” The students reportedly filed their charges through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal body responsible for enforcing worker laws that “make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person’s race, color, religion, sex … national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.”
Custodians Reach Tentative Contract Agreement with Harvard
December 7, 2021 // The union representing Harvard’s custodial workers reached a four-year tentative agreement for a contract with the University Friday, securing wage increases. If ratified, the contract will be in effect from Nov. 16 of this year to Nov. 15, 2025. The ratification vote will likely open the week of Dec. 13