UE in the News

Graduate workers at Indiana University went on strike this morning in response to the administration’s continued refusal to recognize their union, the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition–United Electrical Workers (IGWC-UE). Recognition strikes are uncommon in recent years and, taking place as this one does in a state where public sector workers have few rights (though the same could be said of all Indiana workers, living as they do in a right-to-work state), it’s a show of strength intended to demonstrate that the union has not only majority support among the school’s estimated 2,500 graduate workers but majority participation in a high-stakes collective action.

Jacobin’s Alex N. Press spoke to Cole Nelson, an IGWC-UE member and first-year PhD student in IU’s media studies school, about what led to today’s strike, the demands driving the organizing, and where the action fits into a broader wave of labor organizing in higher education.

The second union contract took effect Wednesday at the Willy Street Co-op, bringing minimum starting pay to $15 an hour and raising average wages by 20% over the two-year term.

“We're actually able to be competitive in the job market now,” said David Droster, chief steward of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1186, which represents roughly 300 nonmanagerial Co-op workers at the three Madison stores and central kitchen. The workers overwhelmingly voted in a union in September 2019, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic would earn grocery workers across the country the moniker of “essential workers.”

Paramveer Singh, a graduate assistant in the Environmental Department at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces ... said his fellow grad workers can no longer afford [the lack of tuition coverage]. They were already crunched financially, Singh said, but now they’re facing rising rents, inflation and fuel prices that are “adding to the pain we endure.”

“Now is the time for real action,” Singh said.

Singh was addressing the NMSU Board of Regents on Monday afternoon. Earlier, outside the meeting chamber, the grad workers union rallied along with faculty, undergraduate students, alumni and community supporters.

Graduate students delivered a petition signed by over 1,100 supporters to the regents, along with a series of public comments at the meeting.

U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury is supporting a union of University of New Mexico graduate student workers in its demand that the university initiate collective bargaining talks with the organization.

In a statement read by a spokesperson at the conference, the New Mexico Democrat wrote, “I’m proud to stand in solidarity with UNM graduate workers in their work to build a brighter future for the entire UNM community, and I look forward to a fair bargaining process that recognizes the vital contributions of graduate workers to teaching and research at New Mexico’s flagship university.”

Sara Worland, a teaching assistant at UNM, said “I believe that negotiating and bargaining is going to make UNM a better place overall for undergraduates, graduates, faculty, everyone involved here. I love UNM, so that’s really my hope, is to make it an even better place through this process.”

Israel Chàvez, an attorney and alum of both UNM and UNM Law school said he was ashamed of the university's unwillingness to come to the bargaining table.

“Union busting is wrong and it wastes dollars, university dollars, our tax dollars and your tuition dollars to try and undermine workers, to try and undermine the vision of protecting workers is wrong. And I want to see the (UNM) president, I want to see the administration, the provost come to the table. Because wasting dollars in this way is just that, wasting dollars. They should be focused on negotiating, they should be focused on bargaining, and they should do it with the same energy that they put into trying to bust this union.”

The newly formed Virginia Beach Workers Union said they want their voices heard and the power to negotiate with the city when it comes to issues in the workplace.

"We want to ensure that our city workers are being treated fairly. That's what this is about. It's about fairness," said Latasha Holloway, director of the Virginia Beach Coalition.

"We’re not asking to be rich, but we’re asking to be treated fairly," said one city worker during the rally.