Do your graduate students have a union?

[Amanda Labuza]

There is a bill in the state of Maryland right now to make it legal for graduate students to form a union. If it passes, our student body will be voting on whether to form a union or not. Currently we have quarterly meetings between a small group of graduate students and the administration. I’m curious if other students have unions. Have they been helpful? What is your experience? I appreciate any input!

[pizbicki]

I am looking forward to hearing from you about this more! We don’t have a union, but I personally think it would be great. However, we do have very good health and dental insurance so at least that is something wonderful!

[Jaadeja]

What exactly would be the purpose of a student union? I have no experience with student unions.

[Amanda Labuza]

Graduate students are in a weird place within universities. We get paid stipends so we are considered “employees” but we are also “students” who theoretically pay tuition even though they end up waiving it as an employee benefit. As a student we can’t ask for raises or better benefits. As an employee, these are things that obviously concern us.

Unions allow the students as a collective to ask the administration for higher stipends, better health insurance, etc. But not every school has a union. At my university, we have a committee within the student government that meets with the administration once a semester and brings up our concerns. While this can be beneficial for small matters and keeps the lines of communications open, we don’t really have any power if they choose to say no to something. Unions have a little more power because they can threaten to strike. I’m curious of other graduate students how successful they’ve found having a union has been.