We recently told you about the United Auto Workers handing a wealth of disappointment to graduate student workers in the form of so-called “sellout deals.” This month, those failed promises continue with new complications to boot.
For starters, the recent, UAW-led University of California grad student strikes resulted in raises, but delivery could be a whole different matter. UC Berkeley, for example, doesn’t have the budget to meet their $38 million bill for raises, and the issue could prompt the university to cut the number of grad students on its rosters. That surely isn’t what union members signed up to hear.
Beyond that lack of meaningful results for unionized graduate students, these updates suggest that even more roadblocks exist:
- Temple University graduate students ratified their new contract after one failed effort earlier this year. The resulting deal, which ends a six-week strike, has been met with criticism of leaving grad students with paltry raises moving them up to only $24,000 per year – less than local fast food worker wages in Philadelphia.
- 900+ Dartmouth University graduate students are organizing, and the university has declined to voluntarily recognize the Graduate Organized Laborers at Dartmouth union, which plans to file for a vote to join the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America.
- Duke University graduate students began to form the Duke Graduate Student Union in 2017. This month, they formally filed for a union election with the university challenging the vote under claims that grad students aren’t employees.
- A Twist: 1,500 Massachusetts Institute Of Technology grad students cannot join a union, according to an NLRB official who determined that fellows who receive personal-research funding and aren’t currently teaching can’t unionize.
- Still, 2,000 University Of Chicago graduate students voted overwhelmingly to join the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Of America.
Outside of the grad-student realm: 1,000+ of New York University full-time non-tenure faculty members are organizing and working towards a vote to join the Contract Faculty United–UAW.
