Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition

What Are We Fighting For?
View Our Demand Letter to President Whitten

Join the Union - Sign a Union Card!

Get Involved - Become a Department Organizer

Submit Voluntary Dues

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Support Us - Donate to Our Campaign

See our Supporters

 OUR AGENDA FOR CHANGE:

  • Bargaining Rights

  • Cost of Living Increases

  • Fair Work and Degree Expectations

  • Fairness for International Students

  • Expanded Medical and Parental Benefits

  • Protect Higher Education

Let’s make a change together! Get involved today!

Support our Union by Supporting Departments

Donations to departments are the most direct way for alumni to support education at Indiana University. IGWC stands in solidarity with departments who want to financially support graduate and undergraduate education but are prevented from doing so by restrictive university budgets and financial structures.

By donating directly to specific departments, alumni can be certain that their charitable gifts will be used to directly fund education across the IU Bloomington campus. IGWC has compiled the following list of links which prospective donors can use to ensure that their donations support education at IU.

Fighting for Recognition: The Story of the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition

by Jamie Theophilos

 Forming a Union

Indiana University’s Policy HR 12-20 Conditions for Cooperation Between Employee Organizations and the Administration of IU guarantees that workers at Indiana University “have the right, freely and without fear of penalty or reprisal, to form, join and assist any lawful employee organization.”

Our unionization efforts have complied fully with this policy:

  • We have signed a supermajority of graduate workers on a union card petition, indicating our democratic will to form a union.

  • We have presented these cards to the IU Administration and asked them to hold a vote among all graduate workers to demonstrate that the majority want to be represented by a union (per the HR 12-20 Policy).

  • IU administration still hasn’t recognized us. The fight for union recognition continues.

 

Who are we?

 

We are over 2,000 graduate workers at Indiana University in Bloomington, fighting for better working conditions. If you are a graduate student at IUB, and you are concerned about your working conditions, please join us! Everyone is welcome.

Why do we need a union?

  • "We need a seat at the table when it comes to advocating for our working conditions!" - Anne K.

  • "We don't want to wait another decade to see grad worker raises. We need to support not only current graduate students but future ones as well." - David G.

  • "We need a union so that we can bargain for our wages and benefits with dignity rather than accept whatever IU's administration decides we can scrape by on." - Charles A.

  • "SAAs are underpaid, overworked, and if a supervisor is exploiting you the university offers no protection. The only real protection we have is when we join together and fight back." - James S.

  • "We need a union to guarantee that the university provides basic rights and benefits to all graduate workers." - Kyle O.

  • "I need a union to afford A/C in summer and heat in winter." - Katya B.

  • "Universities are about education not profit and we need to remind the admin of that." - Denizhan P.

  • "Organized labor power is one of the strongest tools for achieving fair wages and working conditions and for building a just and equal society. The union makes us strong!" - Simon K.

  • "To put an end to the exploitation and the extreme precariousness of graduate students. To put an end to the normalization of student poverty, we need to mobilize and organize in the long term." - Nicolas N.

  • "IU grad workers need a union so we don't have to go on strike to afford groceries!" - Zara A.