Frequently Asked Questions
We are a multidisciplinary group of graduate workers fighting for better working conditions for graduate student workers at Indiana University, Bloomington. Everyone is welcome regardless of race, ethnicity, class, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, nationality, or political affiliation. In the summer of 2021, the IGWC decided to affiliate with United Electrical Workers (UE) in order to gain union recognition for graduate workers at IU. For more information, see Our History and Our Victories!
We are organizing a union so the approximately 2,500 graduate workers at IU Bloomington have the power to ensure that we are fairly compensated and respected at IUB.
Graduate workers at IU teach courses, grade coursework, lead labs and studios, and conduct and assist research. Our labor prepares undergraduates for life after college and contributes significantly to IUB’s research and community impact.
Despite this, the IU Administration has failed to compensate graduate employees fairly. Although the University boasts a $2.4 billion endowment and an enormously successful bicentennial fundraising drive, the majority of graduate employees at IU did not receive a raise between 2014 and 2020. Over this same period, student fees and the cost of living in Bloomington skyrocketed. This means graduate workers took an effective pay cut for over six years.
Since 2019, graduate workers have organized, petitioned, marched, and engaged in a historic fee strike, calling for safe and equitable working conditions. The IU administration refused to make any improvements and even attempted to hide their own report documenting our dire conditions.
IU works because we do. By organizing a graduate worker union, we secure the power to bring our issues as workers to the university and negotiate with them as equals.
At Indiana University, our organizing efforts — petitions, marches, fee strike, and labor strike — have helped us win wage raises, an end to domestic fees, an end to international fees, improved benefits, and representation within several decision-making bodies. But we still have much more to win.
By securing union recognition, we will finally have a voice in decisions across a range of issues, including our pay, fees, health insurance, teaching assignments, and many other labor-related issues. Across the US, graduate workers have organized and won higher salaries, regular pay increases, better tuition reimbursement, stronger benefits, protection from overwork, and improved family and disability benefits, just to name a few.
This is not an automatic process. Right now, each graduate employee must negotiate over their own wages and working conditions for themselves within their department. Graduate workers have extremely limited power in this dynamic. Without a union, we are individuals against the entire university. With a union, we leverage our collective power to negotiate higher standards for all. We win by building a powerful organization of active graduate workers across campus. Our ability to win depends on how united we are as graduate workers and how strong our union is.
The IU Administration’s failure to invest meaningfully in graduate education or recognize our union is unjust and threatens IU’s long-term stability.
Graduate workers who are fairly compensated can focus fully on our instruction and research, providing the best quality education for undergraduates, the best graduate experience, and the cutting-edge research that IU relies on for its status and funding.
Graduate unions have become a mark of quality at higher educational institutions. IU’s refusal to recognize or negotiate fairly with our union hinders IUB’s ability to recruit and retain talented graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, and staff.
The city of Bloomington and state of Indiana also suffer when one of its largest employers — IU — keeps workers at below living wages, hindering our ability to engage fully in the community and local economy.
“Union recognition” means that IU agrees to negotiate over university policies that affect graduate workers with an elected negotiating committee of graduate workers.
Our union is run by our members. If you’re a graduate worker, here’s what you can do:
- Join the union by signing a union card.
- Pay voluntary dues, which are used for informational materials and events. Importantly, they keep our organizing efforts focused on winning union recognition and building solidarity rather than fundraising.
Yes! Many active members of our union are international graduate workers. International students have the right to freely express their views on issues concerning their employment at IU without fear for their visa status. This right is guaranteed by university policy and the laws and constitution of the United States.
IU’s policy on academic freedom reads: “Academic freedom includes the freedom to express views on matters having to do with the university and its policies, and on issues of public interest generally.” The US Department of State further states: “With few exceptions, you have the right to join together with your coworkers to ask your employer to improve your wages or working conditions.” And that “you have this right regardless of your immigration status. Your employer cannot take action against you for asserting your rights.”
The United States Constitution guarantees certain rights to everyone staying in the country. Non-US citizens in the United States (such as international scholars and students) have the right to the same constitutional protections as US citizens. All employees (both citizen and non-citizen) are protected against discrimination on the grounds of race, religion, and national origin in their workplace.
In the last 30 years of graduate employee organizing, there has been no case of retaliation against international graduate employees.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of national origin, race, religion, and sex. Regardless of immigration status, all employees have the right to demand workplace protections. The US Department of Labor further explains that “U.S. laws generally prohibit employers from retaliating against workers for exercising their workplace rights, regardless of the workers’ immigration status.” It is therefore unlawful for employers to retaliate against workers who demand and exert their federally-protected rights, regardless of immigration status.
With all of this context in mind, as graduate workers, we recognize that SAA appointments are often tied to tuition waivers and health insurance, which allow many international graduate students to attend IU. We believe addressing work-related concerns within a large group provides more protection than organizing alone. If any of our members are targeted or retaliated against, we are prepared to respond and organize in their support. There is strength in numbers!
If you are an international student and you want to get involved but are concerned about doing so, reach out!
All public sector employees, regardless of the state, are not covered by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Places like Illinois have an NLRB equivalent for the public sector (e.g., the Illinois Labor Relations Board). The state of Indiana does not have a statewide, public sector labor board. Indiana state law prohibits public sector employees from organizing (IN Code § 4-15-17-4 ), but there are exclusions to that law, including IU employees, public school teachers, and some other groups, like police. Public school teachers and police each have separate labor relations boards which govern their union and bargaining rights (IEERB). IU doesn’t have a labor relations board; it just has its own policy.
IU has said that their policy, which governs organizing and bargaining at IU, does not apply to its graduate workers. This means that IU, by its own admission, knowingly and intentionally, has excluded 2,500 workers from the fundamental right to organize and bargain for better wages.
Though our organizing and bargaining rights are governed by IU, we are still covered by the laws of Indiana’s Department of Labor (IC 22). That means we have some protections: For example, it is a misdemeanor in Indiana for a manager to interfere with a union drive, and that includes IGWC union drives (IC 22-7-1-3).
The same law which prohibits public employees in Indiana from organizing or having bargaining rights also states that public sector employees cannot strike. But again, as IU employees, we are excluded from this law. There is therefore no legal prohibition on striking or otherwise organizing for a union by IU employees, including graduate workers.
IU claims that we are primarily students and not workers. However, graduate workers are very clearly employees under SAA contracts. Moreover, in 2016, the NLRB ruled that graduate students are employees with the right to unionize.
IU policy HR 12-20 states that IU employees “have the right, freely and without fear of penalty or reprisal, to form, join and assist any lawful employee organization, or to refrain from any such activity.”
The IGWC has been active since 2020. While the IU Administration has used tactics to fight against our demands for better pay and better working conditions for graduate workers, they have never retaliated against individual graduate workers.
The most important way we protect ourselves and each other is by fighting together. As we demonstrated during our strikes, and as graduate workers have demonstrated across the country, when we stand together, it is extremely difficult for the university to punish individual graduate workers.
We do! Graduate workers who are IGWC members vote on our platform and actions and elect our Coordinating Committee, which represents graduate workers in negotiations with the IU Administration. Our national union affiliate, the United Electrical Workers, provides experienced union negotiators to assist us.
The day-to-day running of our union and decision-making is all done by IU graduate workers. All IGWC members are encouraged to come to union meetings and become organizers, run for committee leadership (including Coordinating Committee) in elections, and stay informed about initiatives and actions by reading the newsletter, being in contact with Department Organizers, and attending meetings.
Research finds that “union-represented graduate student employees report higher levels of personal and professional support” than their non-unionized peers. With a union, graduate workers negotiate pay and benefits at the campus level and can secure a neutral grievance procedure.
IU currently places the burden on departments to determine and allocate funding and to create individual grievance procedures. This increases the likelihood of tension between graduate workers and their advisors. A union resolves both issues and reduces those as potential tensions.
As a union, we have already helped secure better base wages and pay increases, better health benefits, and steps toward a neutral grievance procedure.
Our current platform identifies the following priority areas:
- Cost of living increases
- Fair work & degree expectations
- Fairness for international graduate workers
- Expanded medical & parental benefits
- Protect higher education
Once we win union recognition, union members will elect a bargaining committee that will survey all union members and bring their priorities to the bargaining table.
Strikes are compelling demonstrations of the power of workers. When we come together in large numbers and withhold our labor, which is integral to the function of the university, we force the IU Administration to pay attention and respond to our demands. Our historic Spring 2022 strike resulted in huge wage increases, the elimination of mandatory fees and international student fees, and other benefits (see Our Victories page). When we come together in a large collective action, we win.
Our previous strikes represented our last-resort option after the IU Administration ignored years of our repeated attempts to have a good-faith, meaningful conversation about improving our working conditions. All future strikes are something our union members vote on and something we would only consider after exhausting other available options.
After IU recognizes our union, per IU policy, we would meet regularly with IU to negotiate our conditions of employment. If IU recognizes our union and negotiates reasonably and in good faith, they can mitigate the need for another strike.
The United Electrical Workers (UE) is a democratic, independent union. UE represents workers across various industries, including graduate workers at MIT, the University of Iowa, the University of Chicago, the University of New Mexico, Northwester University, and others.
Affiliating with a national union allows us to benefit from resources we could not afford on our own, including legal advising and assistance with organizing, negotiating strategy, and data management.
Affiliation does not give UE or any external body control over our union. UE’s slogan is “The Members Run this Union,” and graduate workers at IU will continue to run both the day-to-day operations and larger strategic decisions through our organizing and voting.
Union dues are a small percent (typically 1% to 2%) of an employee’s pay, which fund the cost of organizing materials and activities. This small amount is overwhelmingly offset by the increases in pay and benefits that unionization secures.
When we have formal union recognition, members will be asked to pay union dues so that our time and energy can focus on fighting for better working conditions, instead of fundraising. Right now, we ask members to voluntarily pay dues that are 1.4% of their monthly pay. Please become a voluntary dues paying member!