IGWC-UE Coordinating Committee Recommends Voting NO on Strike Authorization
September 23, 2022 — The IGWC-UE Coordinating Committee recommends voting no on the strike authorization vote scheduled for this Sunday, September 25th.
The IGWC-UE Coordinating Committee recommends voting yes on granting the authority to the CC to set a future strike deadline if negotiations between the Bloomington Faculty Council (BFC) or University Graduate School and the CC do not result in an agreement that IGWC-UE members vote to accept.
Below please find our rationale and vision for next steps as a union.
This year, through your courage and your energy, the IGWC-UE fundamentally changed the horizon for incoming graduate workers on this campus. The extraordinary participation of graduate workers from across the campus in our April strike sent a message to the IU administration that we will no longer be second-class citizens at Indiana University.
Over the past year, we set two strike deadlines, April 9 and September 25. Leading up to each of these deadlines, our union achieved enormous, life-altering victories for grad workers on campus:
a 45% wage increase for the lowest-paid workers in COAS,
an end to mandatory fees and course fees (over $1,400 per year),
an end to discriminatory international student fees (over $600 per year),
100% raises in Jacobs School of Music,
the first raise in over a decade at the School of Education,
improved mental health care,
a grievance procedure,
and more.
Graduate education now looks different at IU.
With these victories in mind, the Coordinating Committee is recommending our membership Vote No in the upcoming strike vote.
We continue to insist on union recognition as the only pathway forward. The Bargaining Committee is in conversations with both the BFC and the Graduate and Professional Student Government about representation through those bodies. We hope these conversations will open the door to partial union recognition before the semester is over. These negotiations are ongoing and will not be completed until after the September 26th strike deadline. The CC recommends that IGWC-UE continue to bargain in good faith with the hopes of coming to an agreement acceptable to our members before setting another strike deadline.
We went on strike for an end to the fees and for union recognition. Given Indiana’s labor law, which does not provide a simple pathway to union recognition, we knew that this would be a hard fight. Despite the IU administration’s intransigence, we have seen the moral clarity of the right to collective bargaining resonate with workers across IU, Indiana, and the nation.
We are committed to the permanent presence and eventual explicit recognition of a union on campus.
Next Steps for Our Union
Hundreds of union members pledged to go on strike pending a yes vote this fall, including hundreds of instructors of record. However, many of our demands, including our central call to end the fees, have been met. A stronger strike is one that’s motivated by an expanded vision of what striking for union recognition means, one which will unite our members, our faculty supporters, and our community.
Prominently, we need to ensure that the gains we made this year are permanent and sustainably funded by the administration, not by individual departments, and especially not by historically underfunded, marginalized, or precarious departments. IGWC-UE is committed to this fight to ensure that our departments prosper from our hard-won raises.
We are excited to solicit ideas from union representatives and members as we unify behind a platform and a direct action plan that can win the most for us and our staff and faculty colleagues. With a strong union rep structure, we can respond quickly to ongoing developments on campus.
IGWC-UE Is Here to Stay
Our union is autonomous—we make decisions for ourselves, elect our leaders, plan our collective actions, and sustain our treasury. We are the only such body for SAAs on campus, and we represent the overwhelming supermajority of grad workers. You can ensure our union remains strong through voluntary monthly contribution.
Over the next few months, CC members and union representatives will continue meeting with deans and department chairs to formalize the local role of the union rep, so it becomes standard practice for grads to be able to request the presence of a union rep in meetings related to our labor.
We saw that with the pressure of our strike, we can win raises and other material improvements from the administration. Current offers include the ability for union reps designated by GPSG to make regular presentations before the BFC (of which the Provost is the head) and a co-chair role of the SAA Affairs Committee.
Our organization can win us much more. See you at the rally Friday.