We’re forming a union! On February 6th, we filed for an election to certify our union, GENU-UAW, with an overwhelming majority of graduate student workers support. With a union, we look to bargain over our working conditions such as our pay, our healthcare, our workload, job security and protections from harassment and discrimination. We follow a national trend of student workers organizing around the country at: public institutions like University of Massachusetts, University of California, University of Washington, University of Connecticut, and many more; and private institutions like Harvard, Columbia, Brown, New York University, Tufts, Brandeis, American University, Georgetown, and others.
Since we filed our petition for our union election, faculty all over campus are showing their support for the NEU graduate student workers’ right to organize and showing us their support for our union. The graduate student workers appreciate all the resounding support from all of the Northeastern community members.
Inevitably, some questions may arise during our election raised by a variety of sources. We have put together a list of common questions that are often raised in union elections. If you do not see a question below that you would like answered, please email us at nugradworkers@gmail.com.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What do the increased costs of unionization mean for research budgets? Will we have fewer RAs or teaching fellows?
Research budgets of federal funding agencies account for annual raises and the university, which is why the budgets cover previous raises when they have been given. The only difference with a union contract is that administrators, faculty and students have a clear picture of what to expect for multiple years, rather than one year at a time (often at the last minute). There is no evidence that unionization has hurt enrollment in peer institutions. For example, for the University of California system, where a union has existed since 1998, enrollment has actually increased from 36,740 to 56,275 graduate students.
How will unionization affect student-advisor relationships? Won’t inviting a third-party into this relationship risk the academic sanctity of this relationship?
Currently, graduate workers often have no choice but to come to their advisors to deal with bureaucratic dysfunction and financial insecurity (e.g. “My pay check still hasn’t come. How do I make it happen?”). The clarity and security of a union contract would ensure that student-faculty relationships revolve around academic work. How and when research work needs to be done will remain the prerogative of faculty, postdocs, and graduate student researchers.
How will strikes affect my research lab?
Our goal is to avoid a strike and come to an agreement on a fair union contract, but are sometimes deemed necessary if an employer refuses to address critical concerns of a community.
Strikes are also the outcome of a democratic process whereby a two-thirds majority must vote to authorize a strike. Even during a strike, however, individual members decide for themselves whether they will join the strike.
Our hope is to negotiate an agreement without the need to discuss a strike, and the best way to ensure a peaceful process would be for the Northeastern administration to respect our choice to form a union, sit down and reasonably bargain a fair contract we are willing to vote to accept that helps address our concerns and allow us to focus on the highest quality research.
Why are existing methods of representation, like the Graduate Student Government, not sufficient? What can a union do that these channels can’t?
Existing methods of representation, such as the Graduate Student Council can and do advocate for students, but the administration is under no obligation to respond to their requests, and they have no legal authority to negotiate better working conditions. Only a union can secure legally binding contract provisions around issues like health insurance and sexual assault policy and subsequently hold the administration accountable to clear standards. Additionally, the GSC is responsible for a much larger population (they include non-workers among them) and a much broader spectrum (they can advocate around campus life and academic concerns). Both have important roles to play in the future of our university.
How can such a varied bargaining unit adequately represent my department’s students? Our department is different and their concerns will get drowned out.
A union contract is a deeply flexible agreement. Graduate workers can negotiate improvements like pay minimums and or advance notice of work expectations while explicitly respecting and preserving the particular needs of different departments and programs. A contract also lets graduate workers negotiate over university-wide concerns, like health insurance, compensation, protections and parental leave.
The university already faces budget shortfalls which means new spending is already cut. Won’t unionization make the situation worse?
Overhead costs or Indirect Costs are calculated as a fraction of direct research costs, and those fractions are negotiated on a regular basis with granting agencies. Additionally, the administration determines the costs of portions of the grants (rent of space, equipment usage, administrative percentages, etc), and are in control of those costs. They could easily reduce those to make up for increases paid to graduate workers. Because graduate workers would have a union and sit across the table with admins who make those decisions, the administrators would be able to make adjustments to ensure they cover the cost (as has happened at 65+ other universities across the country). If they could not, the union and administrators are not likely to come to an agreement on a union contract that would cause collapse of the system.
Why the UAW? UAW is a political organization with its own agenda. Why does it make sense to involve them in important decisions on our campus?
The UAW is the largest union of student workers in the USA. From lawyers at the ACLU to museum workers at MoMA, professional and service workers have been UAW members for decades. Since the 1990s, at peer institutions like NYU, Columbia, and the University of California, graduate students workers have joined the UAW by the tens of thousands. Unions are democratic institutions, and so graduate students’ interests and visions have shaped the UAW’s priorities at both the local and national levels.
Campus Supporter
Peter Desnoyers
Associate Professor of Computer Science
Professor Heather Streets-Salter
Chair and Professor of History
“I call on the university to act not like the big employers of the past who have used half-truths and scare tactics to frighten employees from forming unions, but to take this opportunity to be a progressive example to the rest of the academic world.”
Letter from faculty of the Department of English
“Hence, we ask that our administration adopt a position of neutrality regarding graduate student unionization efforts and cease all communications to graduate students which could be seen as coercive, intimidation, or harassing, or which portray unionization negatively. The administration’s opposition to the students’ efforts is inconsistent with Northeastern’s values and mission, seems calculated only to further alienate graduate students, and is deeply disappointing to the faculty of the English Department.”
Letter from faculty of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology
“[A]fter due deliberation of the issues at hand, we stand strongly in support of the students’ efforts to establish a collective bargaining representative of their own choice. We believe this step will strengthen the students’ ability to carry out their professional training, free of fear and uncertainty regarding their roles as employees.”
Letter from faculty of the Department of History
“We wish also to recognize the integral role graduate students play as employees in the History Department and other and in other units and colleges, and to declare our support for their desire to organize for better wages, grievance procedures, affordable and accessible healthcare, childcare, workload protections, civil rights advocacy, and better protection for international graduate workers.”
Letter from Faculty Forward: Adjunct Faculty Union
“We urge he administration to stop its bullying and start respecting graduate employee’s legal right to organize. Adjunct faculty are in a stronger position now that we were before our contract. We have a seat at the table, and we are not going away. We will continue to support graduate employees as they fight for fair working conditions at Northeastern University.”