Grad Workers win raise after strike, but Admins pocket more money than ever

IU recently announced that the minimum stipend for graduate workers will rise from $23,000 to $24,000, following the 3-day IGWC strike last spring.

It’s clear that the IU administration is responding to our strikes and our organizing. At the same time, this minor raise merely gives the appearance that the administration actually cares for the lives of graduate workers at IU, when, in fact, they are walking back earlier claims.

Broken Promises

Back in 2022, after the IGWC went on a 4-week strike that spring, IU administration capitulated and offered a new minimum stipend of $22,000. IU also committed to “ensur[ing] that [IU’s] minimum stipends and discipline-specific stipend rates remain in the top half of the BIG Ten”—not just public universities, and not average stipends as the new press release stated: minimum stipends in the whole Big Ten.

Raising the minimum stipend to $24,000 does not place IU in the top half of the Big Ten. According to publicly available stipend data, even with this most recent raise, IU still sits firmly in the middle of the pack. One key difference between grad compensation at IU and the “top half” of the Big Ten is the presence of a recognized graduate workers union. The top 8 schools in the Big 10 for graduate compensation all have strong graduate workers unions holding their administrations accountable through collective bargaining. Based on the data, a union is the only way to ensure fair compensation.

Bloated Administration Pay

Meanwhile, Whitten and her cabinet of 18 administrators will receive raises and bonuses in Fiscal Year 2025 totaling $761,366 according to data supplied by the Office of the University Controller and collated by the Indiana Daily Student. Every member of Whitten’s cabinet receives over $300,000 a year in salary—the most generously compensated administration in IU history.

Whitten and her cabinet cost the university nearly 1/3 of the Student Academic Appointee raises by itself in their raises and bonuses alone. Had this cabinet stayed at their 2024 compensation rates, this university could have funneled that money into education rather than their own pockets. IU administration threatens to cut funding to departments, defunds student organizations, underpay vital staff, or refuse to approve new faculty hires, all while paying itself more than ever before.

It’s clear to see where the priorities of the Whitten administration really are.

Who Runs IU?

Upper administration is one of the few areas at IU to see consistent, competitive wages increases, while junior faculty, graduate workers, and especially staff cannot afford rising costs in Bloomington. The people who run this university are not being compensated fairly.

These are all figures that the IGWC would have been happy to provide upper administration at the negotiating table. Yet, Whitten’s administration refuses to even let us hold a union vote despite representing the majority of graduate workers on this campus since 2021.

As graduate workers, our reputations, careers, and labor are inextricably tied to this university. Faculty, staff, and students have the most to gain from an IU run by the people, not overpaid administrators.

This year Whitten will make over $800,000 for the third year in a row—more than enough to land comfortably regardless of her handling of this university. Does she really care about IU the same way we do?