The nationwide trend of higher education workers joining unions to have a voice at work has come to The Lou! The St. Louis Labor Tribune takes a look in Higher Education unions make the grade with labor actions….
St. Louis University’s graduate students voted overwhelmingly to form their own union, one of many colleges to form such unions in recent years. The 560 grad students, who teach classes and do other work at the university in exchange for tuition and a stipend, voted 352-39 to join United Auto Workers as their bargaining agent.
The students told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that they work two to five years as graduate workers with minimal health coverage and extremely low wages that have not been raised for more than 10 years. Some students have had to resort to selling plasma or going to food banks to sustain themselves.
“The number of people who came to the polls really goes to show just how much our colleagues believe in our union, and I am looking forward to bargain with SLU and make sure our grad workers are treated fairly,” biology student Eileen Schaub told the Post-Dispatch. “I can feel good about recommending SLU as a place to do grad studies now.”
Other graduate student unions formed in recent years include the Graduate Employees’ Organization at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Illinois Federation of Teachers Local 6300; University of Chicago GSU under United Electrical Local 1103, Illinois State University Graduate Workers Union and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville under SEIU Local 73, among others.
(Graphic courtesy of the gwsluu-uaw)
