- Why do graduate students need a union?
- How was GEO formed and how has it evolved?
- What has GEO accomplished for graduate students?
- What has GEO accomplished for undergraduates?
- How is GEO funded?
- Do GSRAs receive the benefits of the contract?
- What has GEO done about the 10 term rule?
- How can I get involved in GEO?
International Graduate Student Employees
- Can I join a union in the United States if I am here on an international student visa?
- If I sign a union membership card, who could find out about it?
- Are there any restrictions on political activity by international students?
- Even though I can legally join a union as an international student, are there any restrictions on my ability to participate in union actions such as picketing, rallies, leafleting, etc.?
Why do graduate students need a union?
Graduate students are both students and employees. As employees, they act collectively to ensure fair wages and working conditions, as well as a quality education for themselves and their own students. The logical step is to form a union to maintain and achieve these goals. Graduate students who work at universities without unions often contend with the threat of arbitrary firing and inferior wages and benefits.
Over the last 40 years, colleges and universities have begun to rely on graduate students and lecturers to teach an increasing number of classes. Their strategy has been to cut costs by depending less on better-paid tenured and tenure-track faculty and more on part-time, non-tenured, non-tenure track faculty, like lecturers and graduate students. Indeed, a large percentage of instruction at the University of Michigan is done by lecturers and graduate students. In addition, universities continue to rely on the labor of graduate students for research work that directly benefits the university and its faculty, while at times having little to no relevance to the graduate student’s own research.
While their prospects for tenure-track employment dim, graduate students accumulate staggering debts from their undergraduate and graduate education. A newly graduated Ph.D. faces the likelihood of working at several poorly-paid, part-time teaching jobs. Moreover, most graduate employees are older than undergraduates, less likely to have parental support, and more likely to have families of their own. The old model of graduate students as “apprentice professors” who can accept meager benefits in return for better future pay is no longer valid. While some universities without graduate employee unions offer funding packages with benefits that can be quite generous, these benefits are not contractually guaranteed, which means the university can unilaterally withdraw them at any time. GEO can and has improved the lives of all graduate students at the University of Michigan.
How was GEO formed and how has it evolved?
Graduate students first formed a graduate union to represent ‘teaching fellows’ in 1970. After intensive organizing and a mass meeting attended by 500 graduate employees in response to a 24% tuition increase, graduate employees (teaching, staff, and research assistants) formed GEO and demanded that the University recognize the union as the sole bargaining agent for all Graduate Student Assistants. The University agreed to a state-administered election, and the graduate employees overwhelmingly voted in favor of GEO in 1974. Yet negotiations and state mediation failed to lead to a contract, so in 1975, GEO went on a month-long strike; eventually, the union won a contract that included a wage increase, medical benefits, and agreements over working conditions. However, in 1976 the University argued that GSAs were not really employees. After a series of court battles and appeals, the state forced the University in 1977 to recognize Teaching and Staff Assistants as employees, yet excluded Research Assistants from the bargaining unit. GEO appealed this decision, but finally lost their case in 1981. In 2010-2011, GEO won the support of Graduate Student Research Assistants to join GEO. After the regents of the University of Michigan voluntarily recognized GSRAs as employees in May 2011, GEO is still in the process of negotiating for an election date so that GSRAs can decide themselves whether or not they wish to join GEO as employees. For more information, see “A Narrative History of GEO”.
Under construction – July 2011
