Chloe Bennett
I hope to be elected to the bargaining committee as a member of the College of Sciences. Throughout the election, I worked to ensure the folks in my department understood the importance of a union and helped organize group voting. As a Ph.D. student in population health, I care greatly about health equity. I am eager to understand how things like health insurance and health-promoting factors like wages can be negotiated to improve the lives and well-being of all our grad students. I’m proud to say we’ve voted to unionize, and I hope to be an influential part of the bargaining committee!
Xenia Dragon
My name is Xenia Dragon. I’m a second year PhD student in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences. As an organizer involved in the unionization effort here over the past year, from the card drive to organizing turnout for our sweeping election win, I would be honored to represent all Northeastern grad workers as a bargaining committee member.
As RAs, TAs, and graders, I believe all grad workers do critical work for the university, and we deserve fair compensation, benefits, and ultimately to be respected in our relationship with university administration. Yet, in interacting with a lot of grad workers across departments over the past year of organizing, there are many things we currently lack: a living wage across all programs, dental and vision benefits, visa protections, and protections from discrimination and harassment, to name a few. If elected to the bargaining committee, I will fight for a contract that includes significant improvements in all these areas.
In September, we won the union vote with an impressive 94% yes. I personally voted yes because I believe that a democratic process of collective bargaining is the best way to fight for necessary change for the good of everyone. I hope to be an important part of this process, and bring all grad worker interests to the bargaining table with inclusiveness and transparency.
JD Foster
In part, I joined the Bargaining Committee for selfish reasons. I have a family, including two kids, and – like many of us – I have to work a second job in addition to my SGA to ensure they have quality health, dental, and vision coverage. My own research – the reason I’m here – and the work I give to this university are of lesser quality because Northeastern’s administration won’t provide adequate, affordable insurance. None of us – whether or not we have partners, children, or others who depend on us – should be forced to choose between academic success and health, dental, and vision insurance.
I’m also a member of the BC because – again, like many others – I’ve been asked to work more than my obligated SGA hours, on evenings, and weekends and was afraid to speak up because I feared repercussions. None of us should give more of our time and our labor than required because we feel vulnerable – due to citizenship status or anything else. We deserve explicit protections.
I am in my second year as a Sociology Ph.D. student and have served as an SGA in both the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) program and the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs. But like the rest of the BC, I represent all of us – regardless of our department, where we were born, our gender or gender identity, the color of our skin, how much money our families have, or who we happen to love.
Shahinaz Geneid
I am a fourth-year JD-PhD student in the dual program between the School of Law and the College of Social Sciences & Humanities, where I focus on international human rights law and policy. I’m running for the Bargaining Committee because I know that labor rights are human rights, and I believe it is time for Northeastern to recognize that fact in its dealings with us as graduate workers.
It is deeply hypocritical for Northeastern to passively benefit from our research and teaching that so often advances key rights issues around the globe, while simultaneously actively refusing to acknowledge and uphold our rights as workers here on our own campus. As graduate workers, we deserve living wages with ongoing cost-of-living adjustments, comprehensive benefits, and protection from harassment and discrimination. Fundamentally, we deserve respect from our employer for our labor, especially those of us from historically marginalized communities who have been continuously disrespected by Northeastern, and even threatened with the loss of our positions, funding, visa status, and more, with little to no recourse if we dared to speak up before.
Being a member of our union and part of our Organizing Committee has been one of the great pleasures of my time at Northeastern. I now hope to represent the graduate workers of Northeastern on our Bargaining Committee as the elect for the College of Social Sciences & Humanities and College of Arts, Media, & Design so that we can negotiate our first fair contract before my time here is done.
Kevin Jun Ha
My name is Kevin—known by some as Juni—and I am a 6th year sociology doctoral student here at Northeastern University. Over the past five years, I have witnessed and experienced the various and pervasive forms of exploitation that us graduate workers have had to ensure at every level of the university. From broad sweeping policies and anti-union busting of the administration, to the abuse perpetuated by mentors and advisors who are supposed to keep our best interests at heart, there is an insidious disease within the heart of our institution that is masked behind images of huskies and charitable events.
Between the 60+ hour work weeks at exceedingly low wages, the lack of adequate health and dental care, the failures of proper protections for reporting advisor abuse, or the lack of childcare for graduate worker parents, these forms of exploitation have irreparable consequences on the minds, bodies, and spirits of the workers that keep this institution going.
The only way forward is to organize ourselves and each other through the democratic and worker-led process that is collective bargaining. Having been actively silenced by my own department who purportedly maintain pro-union views, I am firm and unwavering in my commitment to the success of our union. Regardless of the results of this nomination, I will forever fight for the rights of workers.
Sydney Purdue
I am a second-year PhD student in the College of Arts, Media and Design in the Interdisciplinary Design and Media program. I have been organizing with GENU-UAW for the past year as a part of the Organizing Committee, and as I’ve talked with graduate workers across our unit on walkthroughs, during rallies, and through personal conversations, it’s been extremely clear to me how much we all stand to gain from a strong contract. I want to fight for improvements that will impact all of us but also for those that will have a direct and substantial benefit for a subset of students, like international students or students with children. I want to be sure that we bring the daily issues and realities of our members to the bargaining table to voice the ways we deserve to be treated better by Northeastern.
As soon as I became a member of this community, I knew I wanted to join the union to help fight for better conditions for all of us, and I’d love to continue to do that as a member of the bargaining committee. I’m excited to help win our contract for us now, but I’m also thrilled to establish a strong foundation for incoming graduate workers who can join our community with more protections, more financial security, and better benefits and to set yet another precedent of the collective power of graduate workers with an excellent contract.
Tim Rupprecht
I am running for bargaining committee because making the school a better place to learn and be a community is something I feel passionate about. Society pushes us apart in so many ways we need to work hard to build a place where we can stand together. After working with the Organizing Committee for the last year through the election, I believe the best way to build that community here at Northeastern University is bargaining for a contract that gives us a living wage, expanding insurance coverage, and improved workplace protections for all local and international students.
Sophia Sheng
My name is Sophia Sheng and I am a second year law student working as a research assistant at the law school. Organizing with other workers in a union to bargain for our contract is the best way to ensure lasting benefits for every worker. When I first arrived on campus, I organized law student worker participation from the union’s authorization card campaign in Fall 2022 through to the successful election in Fall 2023 by seeking out my colleagues and having conversations about pay, grievance procedures, and working conditions. I helped organize other departments and came to appreciate that the diversity of our workplaces can actually help us win a better contract and weather institutional pressure, such that pressure on one department can be shouldered by other, less vulnerable departments.
No graduate student worker has access to dental care through the university-designed health insurance plan. At the law school, our pay is capped at $2,000 for the entire semester due to work study restrictions that the university places upon federal work study grants. The minimum wage for work study is $15, however many law workers work well beyond the number of hours they are allotted for that semester, resulting in below minimum wage compensation. Further, employment at the law school often lacks clarity about employment-related grievance procedures, which results in diminished agency for law student workers, particularly those student workers who are underrepresented in the legal profession.
As a representative for the Law School, Business School, and College of Professions graduate workers I will work together with the students across these schools to advocate for your concerns at the bargaining table.
Niki Thomas
My name is Niki Thomas, I am doing my PhD in Bioengineering, and I would be honored to represent the College of Engineering on our union’s bargaining committee. Having seen what a union can do for grads while at the University of California, I have been involved in the fight for our unionization since transfering here last year. I know from first hand experience that what Northeastern offers us is well below what our colleagues receive at other academic institutions, and I am dedicated to ensuring that we get the improvements that we so desperately need. As researchers, teachers, and graders we are the primary workforce of the university. We deserve to be compensated fairly and to be treated with dignity regardless of our degree path, nationality, health status, or identity. Should it come to a vote and I am elected, I will continue to advocate fiercely for our community at the bargaining table.