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Why These Three International Grad Workers Need Union Recognition
The IGWC cares about its international members because they often suffer the most precarious living conditions. Since graduate workers on visas cannot supplement their income, they rely almost solely on university funding.
The union helped eliminate the international student fee in 2022, but the fight continues for international grad workers. Hear why three of our international members want a union:
Katharina Schmid-Schmidsfelden, Germanic Studies
“As an international student on an F1 Visa, I am very grateful for the IGWC because we got rid of the mandatory fees in 2022, which were so high that international students were basically working one month for free. Today we have to rely on the salary we make through our SAAships because our Visa does not allow us to work outside of those 20 hours. Taking on a second job to get a living wage is therefore no option for us. This is why we need a union to make our problems visible and help us negotiate on the bargaining table.”
Chaoqi Zhang, Computer Science
“I joined the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition (IGWC) to stand up for our rights and fight for better conditions. IGWC is advocating for positive changes that affect us international students. I urge my fellow international students to join us in this fight because unity and solidarity are essential. Together, we can achieve our common goals and ensure our voices are heard loud and clear in the academic community.”
Sweta Dutta, Religious Studies
“As an international graduate student who supports her family financially, and is dependent on a graduate stipend, a graduate life with a living wage is no more a wishful thought. Since IU strives for excellence and boasts of a diverse graduate student life, it is our duty to remind the administration that excellence requires capital—in a war footing for many of us who are first generation PhDs, it is a means of sustenance to recover and recuperate. The IGWC has not only provided me with the platform to fight for this sustenance and raise vital issues concerning graduate life on campus, it has also given me the opportunity to become part of a robust community of grad workers who I can count on for active support, care and assistance. I demand union recognition because it champions our fight for sustenance, our visibility, and our share of fair and equitable rights.”
Union Recognition Means Big Wins for Graduate Workers Across the Country!
Join over 1,200 of your fellow graduate workers in our campaign for union recognition and a living wage.
Our ability to win union recognition would give us the ability to negotiate a contract on a broad range of issues relevant to graduate employees. Union recognition would allow an elected IGWC bargaining committee to negotiate with the IU admin over issues like:
Comprehensive health benefits
Teaching workloads
Fair research standards
Paid leave, and more!
At MIT, the grad union recently bargained their first contract, securing massive gains, including:
Access to vision insurance and improved dental coverage
Health and safety provisions for lab work
Coverage for immigration and visa fees for international workers
At the University of Michigan, the grad union went on strike earlier this year when the administration refused to bargain in good faith over their contract renewal. As a result, the union brought admin back to the bargaining table and made huge wins, including:
A university-sponsored transition fund for graduate students switching advisors
Paid maternity and parental leave
20% cumulative raises over the next three years
With union recognition, the IGWC aims to make similar gains for graduate workers here at Indiana University. Help us get there by signing your union card today!
The Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition is hiring!
We’re seeking a part-time organizer to help build power for graduate workers at Indiana University, Bloomington.
Job duties include extensive outreach to graduate students through one-on-one conversations, phone calls, texting, and emails; building department-level organization; recruiting, training, and developing department organizers from among union members; and increasing our base of dues paying members.
Strong commitment to worker power and social justice required. Knowledge of the IU campus and the IGWC preferred.
Organizers can be hired at either 10 hours per week ($250/week) or 20 hours per week ($500/week). Exact work hours will vary based on campaign needs.
Contact indianagradworkers@gmail.com for questions or more details about the position.
To apply, please submit a resume/CV and brief letter describing your experience and interest to indianagradworkers@gmail.com.
Over 800 Grad Workers Sign Union Cards on Day One of the Union Drive
September 29, 2023 — Graduate students at Indiana University are showing their support for unionization and a living wage by signing union cards at extraordinary rates. In just twenty-four hours, over 800 graduate students signed union cards. See full press release here.
The “More Say, More Pay” rally was also featured at the following news outlets: Indiana Public Media and The Bloomingtonian.
Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition To Hold Rally, Demand Living Wage And Union Recognition
September 25, 2023 — The Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition (IGWC) is holding a rally for “More Say, More Pay” on Thursday, September 28, where IGWC will launch a major campaign to encourage graduate workers to sign union cards in support of a living wage and union recognition. The event will take place from 12:00 p.m. until 1:00 p.m. at the Sample Gates. Read full press release here.
Members Vote YES on Campaign for Living Wage and Union Recognition
September 11, 2023
On Sunday, September 10, 2023, just two days prior to the four-year anniversary of IGWC’s founding, the IGWC held a General Assembly. The meeting featured a presentation of the new campaign for the 2023-2024 academic year.
The campaign presses the administration to both recognize the union and increase graduate workers’ pay to a living wage ($28.3k for 10-month contracts and $34k for 12-month contracts). The campaign also calls for graduate workers to sign new union cards, including members who have signed a union card in the past, to demonstrate to the IU administration that the IGWC-UE still represents a supermajority of graduate workers.
The General Assembly agenda also included a proposed amendment to the union by-laws, which would economize General Assembly meetings, and a proposed budget for the upcoming year.
After the meeting, the proposed items were sent to union members for voting. The vote, tallied on September 11, yielded the following results:
For the campaign for union recognition and a living wage: 137 YES, 4 NO
For an amendment to the Article 25, Section A, for fewer required GAs: 135 YES, 5 NO
For the budget proposal: 137 YES, 2 NO
The campaign for union recognition and a living wage will officially begin at the "More Say, More Pay" Rally on September 28! Members may RSVP here.
IU Administration Undermines Union Gains with Inequitable Wage Distributions
July 26, 2023 — While our organizing did push the University to give grad workers a 3% raise, the admin applied it in a wildly unequal way. IGWC-UE Coordinating Committee sent a letter demanding these inequities be addressed. You may read the full letter copied below.
Come join us at the next General Assembly on August 1st at 3:30 p.m. to help build our capacity to keep fighting for grad workers and discuss our upcoming leadership elections! The GA will be held at the Monroe County Public Library Room 1C (and also via Zoom). Please RSVP here.
Subject line: Concerns regarding the 2023-2024 wage increase policy for SAAs
Dear Dean Daleke,
Since the Fall of 2018, graduate workers on campus have repeatedly called upon the IU Administration to include their chosen representative body, the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition - United Electrical Workers, in decision-making about our working and living conditions. We are disappointed that the Administration refuses to consult the union that represents graduate employees at Indiana University.
Concerning the recently announced raises, we applaud the principle of an annual wage increase. However, this raise falls severely short. A 3% increase is neither commensurate with inflation nor does it get graduate workers on our campus to a living wage in Bloomington.
Most egregiously, this wage increase violates the principle of equal pay for equal work. The raise excludes incoming first year graduate workers and graduate workers who received fellowships last year, in effect, punishing fellowship recipients for their success. As a result, graduate workers teaching the same or similar courses within a department will be paid at different rates. This policy will inject the principle of inequality into the IU salary system for years to come. We call upon the University Graduate School to implement this raise equitably to all SAAs for the 2023-2024 academic year and onwards.
The Administration’s failure to consult the IGWC-UE has resulted in this irrational and unfair policy. Graduate workers at IU Bloomington stand firm in our pursuit of formal recognition of our union. We are eager to work with the University Graduate School and the rest of the IU Administration on this and other issues pertaining to the working and living conditions of graduate workers across campus.
We look forward to your response.
Regards,
The Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition - United Electrical Workers
3% SAA Raises Mark Another Win – IGWC-UE Pressure Works!
July 18, 2023
Dear IU graduate workers,
Yesterday, Dean Daleke and the University Graduate School announced a 3% raise for returning SAAs for the 2023-2024 academic year. This raise is another victory in a series of IGWC-UE wins for better working and living conditions for grads across campus.
In Spring 2023, the IGWC-UE delivered a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) petition signed by over 1000 workers on campus demanding 8% raises for all workers across campus to keep up with inflation. The 3% raise will positively impact graduate workers on campus, but also all full-time faculty and staff. Our continued pressure wins wage increases across campus. For workers making $22k, an extra $660 a year, or $60 a month, can go far — covering a month’s rent, the cost of medicine or physical therapy, a week of groceries, a trip to see loved ones, and more.
Though this is a victory, it is still woefully inadequate. Let us be clear: a 3% raise is not enough. Our salaries still do not keep up with inflation, and our salary remains far from a living wage in Bloomington, which is $28,330 for 10 months and $34,000 for 12 months. This is precisely why we must keep up the pressure, keep fighting, and make sure our demands continue to be backed by the majority of grad workers on campus.
Before IGWC-UE began organizing in 2017, regular yearly raises were almost unheard of — some schools and departments went ten years without a wage increase. Since IGWC-UE started organizing, our efforts have resulted in regular, yearly wage gains and fee reductions across campus. As a direct result of our organizing, grad workers have seen increases in their take-home salaries ranging from 20-70% in most departments and up to 100% in some departments and schools over the past 5 years. For instance, the average Media School graduate student was paid $13,500 for ten months in the 2019-2020 school year. With these raises, their income will be $22,660 for 2023-2024, a four-year increase of 68%.
We are preparing for the 2023-2024 school year, and we need you on board. Sign up to be a Department Organizer today. With the involvement of grad workers from every department across campus, we can get closer to the teaching, research, and living conditions we deserve.
Solidarity,
The Indiana Graduate Workers - United Electrical Workers
Despite Winning Pay Raise, IU Grad Workers Face Precarity
June 30, 2023
This past spring semester, IGWC-UE fought hard for a cost of living adjustment.
By not keeping with the cost of living, the university has effectively given its workers a pay cut. After historic organizing in 2022, in which we won a pay raise for graduate students, we’ve still seen our effective earnings fall dramatically as the cost of living increased with inflated prices.
Over the last year, Bloomington’s median rent for a single bedroom unit jumped from $803 in 2022 all the way to $1,025 in 2023 — a 28% increase! Today, the cost of living is $33,572, which doubles if you have a child. After over 1,200 workers demanded the university respond to our petition for a cost of living adjustment, the Provost initially ignored the petition, then refused to give us a raise, saying that workers simply didn’t understand “the context.”
This Fall, we’re coming back stronger and more organized in order to demonstrate that we deserve a living wage. During the Summer, we’re having weekly meetings every Monday at 2pm to help lay the groundwork for a successful semester.
Graduate Workers Vote to Adjust Strike Schedule, Pending Negotiations
September 27, 2022 — In light of ongoing negotiations with the Bloomington Faculty Council and University Graduate School, the IGWC-UE Coordinating Committee recommended voting “no” on strike authorization, and “yes” to allow the Coordinating Committee to set a later strike date, should the IU Administration fail to offer the union suitable recognition and shared governance. General Membership agreed, in a vote that demonstrates graduate employees’ willingness to engage in good-faith negotiations with the administration, and urges the Administration to do the same.
GPSG Underscores Endorsement of Union, Formalizes Union Voice in SAA Matters
September 23, 2022 — The IU Graduate and Professional Student Government passed three pieces of legislation that underscored their endorsement of the IGWC-UE as the appropriate body to engage in conversations with the college and upper administration that relate to graduate worker contracts. The resolution and two amendments passed with zero dissenting votes (and a maximum of 3 abstentions). The first was a resolution to formally recognize the IGWC-UE; the second an amendment to formally create a IGWC-UE representative position within GPSG's Executive Committee; and the third a corresponding amendment to the bylaws to include IGWC-UE representation within GPSG seats on committees relevant to SAAs. In an email to the entire graduate student body, GPSG President Chelsea Brinda stated, “The GPSG is the democratic body representing graduate and professional students as students on campus. The IGWC-UE is the democratic body representing graduate workers as workers on campus.”
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.
IGWC-UE Enters Formal Conversations with BFC, University Graduate School
September 19, 2022 — Marking a vital turning point, the IGWC-UE received direct communications from the Bloomington Faculty Council and University Graduate School, extending an invitation to begin conversations about union representation through those bodies. With union recognition remaining the fundamental goal, graduate workers are optimistic that these negotiations may open the door to partial union recognition within the semester. The IGWC-UE Coordinating Committee formally expressed its commitment to bargaining in good faith, with the hopes of finding an agreement acceptable to full membership.
Union Wins End to International Student Fees, Grievance Procedure, & More
September 13, 2022 — Following public scrutiny of the IU Administration’s failure to act on key graduate worker concerns, IU President Whitten and Provost Shrivastav announced a second round of improvements aligning with the IGWC-UE platform, including an end to the international student fee, enhanced graduate health benefits, changes to the grievance procedure, and opportunities for graduate student representation on formal university committees involved in SAA affairs.
IGWC-UE Rallies Outside Board of Trustees Meeting for Union Recognition
August 11, 2022 — Calling on the IU Administration to recognize the union, IGWC-UE members rallied outside the Board of Trustees meeting in Henke Hall. While recent wins stemming from the graduate workers’ historic spring strike amount to an effective 45% raise for the lowest-paid student academic appointees ($6,000 increase in base pay, plus the elimination of an additional $1,400 in mandatory fees), IGWC-UE members underscored that, without union recognition, the IU Administration and Board of Trustees can unfairly and unilaterally rescind these changes without any employee input. Pressure on the administration remains high as the September strike date nears.
Facing Fall Strike, IU Administration Raises Pay Floor, Ends Mandatory Fees
August 2, 2022 — With a fall strike vote looming, the IU Bloomington Administration announced that “Effective retroactively to July 1, 2022, IU will increase minimum SAA stipends to $22,000; cover the mandatory graduate student fees of $1,435 currently paid by all SAAs; as well as cover course-specific fees for SAAs in programs that charge them.” These echo long-time demands of the IGWC-UE and represent a critical advance in campus equity. The change, however, does not cover international student fees, which unfairly burden graduate workers who are not US citizens.
Statement on the End of Mandatory Fees and Pay Increases
August 1, 2022 — In an enormous win for the IGWC-UE and step toward Union recognition, IU Bloomington Admin announced an increase to the minimum SAA pay and end to the mandatory fees, effective immediately.
Changes include an end to the mandatory fees and other course-related fees for SAA appointees, graduate stipend increases based on median departmental pay among Big Ten universities, an immediate raise in minimum stipend to $22,000, a biannual review of SAA stipends, and prioritization of graduate funding in campus fundraising.
These wins result from the collective efforts of over 2,000 graduate workers and countless allies. Since 2018, we have engaged in public marches, petitions, a fee strike, and our Spring 2022 Graduate Worker Strike.
While this represents significant progress in improving graduate worker equity on the IU Bloomington campus, it is important to note that the recommendations do not cover several core issues faced by graduate workers, including cost-of-living adjustments, protection for international workers, improved benefits, and a neutral grievance procedure. These wins demanded incredible time and effort from graduate workers, staff, faculty, students, and allies, underscoring the necessity of recognizing our union as a long-term commitment to graduate worker equity.
Graduate workers at IU should be proud. Our collective action is improving conditions on campus - for ourselves and for future generations of graduate workers at IU Bloomington. We remain resolute in our fight for union recognition. We fight to ensure that graduate workers will not have to strike to ensure basic dignity in working and living conditions, and that IU can truly commit to its mission of providing excellent teaching and research to the state of Indiana.
Taskforce Echoes IGWC-UE Platform, Calls for End to Fees, Increased Wages
July 29, 2022 — In a massive win for the IGWC-UE, the Task Force on Graduate Education issued a report echoing our demands for improved pay and an end to the fees. We call on IU President Whitten and Provost Shrivastav to sign these into effect for the Fall 2022 semester, as also recommended by the Task Force. While this represents significant progress, resulting from the massive efforts of graduate workers and allies - including the Spring 2022 strike - these recommendations do not include several core issues faced by graduate workers, including cost-of-living adjustments, protection for international workers, improved benefits, and a neutral grievance procedure. Read our full statement.