Who is the union? Why UAW?
We, the graduate student workers, are the union! The union is not a third party.
Graduate Students United has been led by and for graduate student workers since its genesis in 2020. Our affiliation with United Auto Workers (UAW) 2322 began in the spring of 2023 after careful deliberations and consensus and following more than two years of organizing by graduate students like me and you.
We are the graduate student workers of UVM, and we are the UAW. This effort is graduate student-led, and our affiliation with UAW provides us with organizational support and legal resources. We join thousands of other graduate student workers in the UAW, which has a robust history of wins in the higher ed sector.
After reviewing and meeting with several affiliate unions, the GSU Organizing Committee voted to affiliate with the UAW. The UAW is an International Union: United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America. UAW is one of the largest and most diverse unions in North America, with members in virtually every sector of the economy. UAW-affiliated graduate student unions include: UMASS (Amherst, Boston, & Lowell), NYU, the University of California system, Columbia, and many others. GSU’s Organizing Committee voted to work with UAW Local 2322 specifically because UAW 2322 has demonstrated their effectiveness in organizing at other peer universities, including at UMass Amherst and Goddard College. We are specifically excited to work with UAW 2322 because we are gaining graduate sister unions in GEO at Umass Amherst, and GWU at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Why is a graduate student union necessary?
A graduate student union gives us the legal right to bargain collectively with the UVM administration and it requires them to negotiate with us in good faith. It is no secret to any graduate student that our stipends do not constitute a livable wage in Chittenden County. Asking your departments or advisors for a raise individually does not guarantee results. With a union, we gain the right to negotiate for better wages and benefits together by exercising our collective power. Further, once we have a negotiated contract, the administration will be bound by it and cannot make changes without negotiating with GSU.
What are GSU’s demands and what does signing a union card mean?
GSU’s demands come directly from our organizing efforts. When you sign a union card you say:
- YES to a universal minimum stipend at a living wage
- YES to vision and dental benefits
- YES to accessible childcare for working parents
- YES to enforcing 20-hour TA/RA workload cap
- YES to a robust grievance procedure
- YES to addressing the housing crisis
- NO to the “comprehensive fee”
Who will be represented by a graduate student union?
We are seeking representation for all Masters and PhD students who are currently employed as graduate teaching assistants, graduate research assistants, graduate assistants, pre-doctoral trainees/fellows, and all other graduate workers doing academic work. If you are a graduate student working in an academic position at UVM, we are seeking to represent you in the union.
Who makes the decisions for the union?
GSU is a democratic body. We vote on all major issues and decisions that we make, including who will represent us at the bargaining table when we win our union election. We will also welcome all union members to attend and take part in negotiations. Any agreement reached with the university will be put to a vote by the membership.
Will the university accept our demands in bargaining?
We can win the things we deserve in bargaining. Further, the formation of GSU would ensure that graduate student workers have the legal right and opportunity to bargain for stipend increases, better benefits, and more for years to come – and that administration is legally required to meet us at the bargaining table and negotiate. In the long run, this makes graduate school more safe and accessible.
I received an email from the Provost and the Dean of the Graduate College with a lot of information about unionization that is confusing. Why is the administration discouraging us from unionizing?
It is a common and age-old tactic for employers to discourage unionization by distributing confusing or misleading information because they would prefer not to sit down at a bargaining table and negotiate a fair contract with us. This is called union-busting. It has been used by other university administrations as well as private companies such as Amazon and Starbucks in recent history. It is unfortunate that the administration has chosen to go down this path rather than recognize the overwhelming support from students in favor of unionizing. The narratives that UVM is using to discourage graduate students from joining GSU have failed in the higher education sector for years.
I saw UVM also has an FAQ about unionization, is this information accurate?
The FAQ published by the university does contain some accurate information alongside union-busting language and some misinformation. We provide an annotated version of the administration’s FAQ to help clarify where we stand.
Do we have the right to form a union? Are we workers?
Graduate student workers are workers and we have the right to organize our workplace under the State Employees Labor Relations Act of Vermont. Any threats or intimidation by the administration against us unionizing are illegal.
In a filing with the Vermont Labor Relations Board, UVM administration has absurdly claimed that we are not employees. In communications to students, they have called our relationship with the university “unique” and “primarily educational,” despite the fact that graduate students across campus are performing essential labor for a wage, making us workers or employees, both in a legal sense and a practical sense. This is labor the university could not function without. Further, there are examples of numerous graduate student unions across the United States in both private and public-sector universities. We will fight this claim at the VLRB, and we stand against UVM’s narrative.
You can view UVM’s VLRB filing and our legal counsel’s filing in response.
Will forming a union jeopardize our relationship with faculty and advisors?
The administration is trying to pit faculty and graduate students against one another, but our faculty are among our strongest allies. Throughout our union drive, we have had immense support from advisors, professors, and other members of the UVM faculty. When we learned of an email sent to all UVM faculty that alleged a union may have an adverse effect on the graduate student-faculty relationship we reached out to our allies and unionized faculty at United Academics. They shared the following words of solidarity:
All graduate students have the right to organize to collectively strengthen their ability to fight for just wages, better health insurance, and a humane standard of working conditions. Graduate students today live in a perfect storm of exorbitant tuition, unaffordable housing (where housing can be found), rising health care costs and no longer having access to childcare on campus. This is an untenable situation that the UVM administration has not addressed. In fact, instead of meeting the legitimate needs of graduate students honestly and directly, the UVM administration’s response is a classic example of paternalistic tactics meant to disrupt organizing efforts. Graduate students are adults and workers, and, in those capacities, have the right to organize and the responsibility to do so if their wages, benefits, and working conditions are insufficient. We have seen this before. Previous UVM administrations have responded similarly over the past twenty years or so. Around the country, administrators have been making the same move since at least the 1990s, at other universities where graduate-student workers are now unionized, often after decades of patient struggle.
UVM’s faculty union, United Academics, stands in solidarity with UVM graduate student workers who are currently doing the work of organizing their own union. We not only strongly support the graduate student organizing efforts, we are here to help. One of the core principles of unions is solidarity with working people everywhere, and this solidarity makes us all stronger. Our faculty union has a partnership with UVM’s staff union, in which we share information, learn from one another, and show up to support when needed. We look forward to expanding this coalition with a graduate student union and will continue to show our support throughout their process.
How does Graduate Students United (GSU) relate to the Graduate Student Senate (GSS)? What about efforts to work with the administration through GSS?
Graduate Students United (GSU) will collaborate with and support the Graduate Student Senate (GSS). GSU and GSS have an established and strong working relationship. In fact, the unionization movement at UVM actually started within GSS in 2019, when a committee was formed to explore the possibility of unionizing. This committee was formed out of frustration with stipends lagging behind the rising cost of living in Burlington, despite GSS requests for cost-of-living increases in previous semesters.
In fall of 2021, GSS passed a resolution in support of a graduate student unionization. The administration has repeatedly skirted accountability, despite diligent efforts by GSS Senators (including Senators who are also leaders within GSU) to improve conditions for graduate students campus-wide. GSS can request increases to stipends and improvements to benefits, but stipend levels and benefit packages are currently set by committees that meet behind closed doors and contain one or no graduate students. Year after year, the suggestions made by GSS have been ignored or distorted by these committees. For example, GSS has repeatedly requested that stipends be set based on the Vermont Basic Needs Budget for a single individual living alone. However, the administration has ignored these requests, insisting that $807 per month is enough for rent in Burlington. Ironically, UVM plans to charge significantly more than this estimate for rent in their own graduate student housing at Catamount Run. Therefore, while GSS is an open and democratic forum, the way GSS is treated by the UVM administration is not democratic.
Recognition of GSU will provide critical legal frameworks that ensure that the university is accountable for the needs of graduate student workers. With the recognition of GSU, a bargaining team made up of graduate students will work to negotiate fair wages and benefits with the university, and this bargaining team cannot be left out of the discussion the same way that GSS has in the past. This means that graduate students will finally be directly involved when it comes to decisions that directly impact their well-being.
Graduate student senates and graduate student unions coexist at other universities, and the same will be true at UVM. Many of the students involved with GSU are or have been involved with GSS, and these connections will make it even easier for GSS and GSU to work together to advocate for the needs of all graduate students at UVM.
Will forming a union impact my ability to attend conferences, conduct fieldwork, or other research related activities?
The union will not harm students’ ability to participate in such research activities. Funding for conferences provided by PIs, from grants, and from other sources will not be negatively impacted and students will continue to be able to access these funds without interference. GSU has no plans to bargain for contract language that would make such activities less accessible for graduate students.
Will my union membership affect my student visa? Can it affect future visas?
All student employees, regardless of their immigration status, have the right to engage in activity with their co-workers concerning their working conditions, form a union, and collectively bargain with our universities. It is illegal for an employer to retaliate against any student employees for exercising their rights.
How do unions support international students?
Not only will international graduate workers be represented, but unions are a powerful tool to support international graduate students. Many of the ways in which unions benefit all of us are also ways in which they benefit international students, for example, by providing representation and advocacy, collective bargaining, wage increases, better healthcare and benefits, workplace safety, protection from retaliation, legal assistance, educational advocacy, and addressing discrimination. GSU-UAW is prioritizing international graduate student issues in our organizing efforts. Here are some examples we can turn to:
How much will I pay in union dues?
Union dues provide resources such as legal representation. All union members pay dues as a way to provide support to each other. There will be no union dues or fees until we negotiate a collective bargaining agreement that is satisfactory to us. When the contract goes into effect, UAW 2322 dues are set at a flat rate of 2% of each paycheck with a one-time initiation fee of $20.
Will my support of the union put me at risk for retaliation from the school?
Retaliation is against the law and we would not accept any such retaliation or attack from the university, and we would follow in the footsteps of other unions, such as the UVM Staff Union, to fight against retaliation. The best way for us to protect ourselves against retaliation is to be well-organized and show our strength in numbers.
How close are we to winning our union?
On October 30th, GSU filed a petition for a union election with the Vermont Labor Relations Board. Shortly after, UVM contested the election, claiming that we are not employees under the State Employee Labor Relations Act (SELRA) despite there being dozens of examples of unionized graduate student workers in multiple other states and at both public and private universities (see our response). The VLRB will hear testimony from UVM and from GSU in January, after which they will make a decision about whether we may form a union and who will be included in our bargaining unit. Once we have this decision we will be able to set a date for our union election, which we hope to have early in the Spring semester. Once we win our union, we will shift into negotiations for our first contract.