Labor Watch: Strikes Begin to Simmer

More than 100 University of Michigan graduate employees walked off the job Thursday to protest the university’s latest contract proposal, which the union says does not meet the increasing cost of living, provide adequate protections for international workers or address rising class sizes.

Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed

The Graduate Employees Organization represents more than 4,500 graduate workers at the university and has been bargaining with university officials for 11 months. The workers’ existing contract expired in May. In addition to wage increases and worker protections, the union is calling on the university to ban Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from campus after graduate student Philippe Kame was detained by ICE in April.

In a written statement to The Michigan Daily, the student newspaper, spokesperson Paul Corliss said the university has engaged in good-faith negotiations.

“Throughout the negotiating process, GEO has continually emphasized permissive and illegal bargaining subjects that would impact parties and people that GEO does not represent, which has contributed to the slow pace of progress,” Corliss wrote.

The rally comes just over a month after the Graduate Employees Organization said it was hit with a federal subpoena that seeks “a huge swath of documents,” including membership rolls, a list of current and former officers, meeting notes, and personnel and financial records. The subpoena was issued by prosecutor Maggie Smith and FBI special agent Kara Phipps, who are both connected to the Trump administration’s indictment of eight pro-Palestinian protesters at the university. The union defended the protesters, called the Michigan Eight.

After a sleepy summer, union activity was back in full swing in September, with many shops pushing to wrap up dragging negotiations. In this edition of Inside Higher Ed’s Labor Watch, the City Colleges of Chicago union sets a strike deadline, Harvard graduate workers consider a second strike and Massachusetts Institute of Technology workers tell President Sally Kornbluth that MIT’s latest proposal is “a slap in the face.”

STRIKE ALERT: City Colleges of Chicago faculty and professional staff will strike later this month if they do not reach an agreement with the college for a new contract before Oct. 19, the union announced outside a Board of Trustees meeting Thursday. Cook County College Teachers Union, Local 1600, has negotiated with college officials since February, and the two parties remain at odds over wages, working conditions and increased support for students.

“City Colleges students need more. They need more tutoring services. They need smaller class sizes to understand the complex concepts that we’re going to be trying to give to them,” Rochelle Robinson-Dukes, a professor at Olive-Harvey College on the far south side of Chicago, said before the board.

The union’s existing contract expired in July. Ninety-six percent of members voted to authorize the strike, according to a news release. “That is not a small group of frustrated people. That is a workforce speaking with one voice,” Tony Johnston, president of the Cook County College Teachers Union, told ABC 7.

In a statement to ABC, officials said the college “remains committed to finalizing agreements with faculty and professional staff as we continue to support students in achieving their educational and career goals.”

Harvard University’s graduate student union also took the first step toward a strike last month. Harvard Graduate Students Union–UAW started a strike authorization vote Sept. 28 after bargaining for 572 days, the union announced in a news release. If a strike comes to pass, it would be the union’s second while negotiating its first contract; HGSU-UAW previously struck for 40 days in April and May.

“The Harvard administration is choosing this strike,” Adam Sychla, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School and a member of the bargaining committee, said in the release. “We don’t want to strike, but if they don’t start being serious, we will.”

MIT UNION SAYS LATEST PROPOSAL IS ‘DISGRACE’: Massachusetts Institute of Technology facilities workers delivered a petition to institute President Sally Kornbluth last month, demanding a wage increase, lower health-care premiums and “other improvements,” the union announced in a news release.

“We go out of our way to help maintain this campus all the time,” MIT electrician and bargaining committee member Jim Bradford said in the release. “Yet while many of us are struggling to put food on the table, all that the university has offered us is basically a slap in the face. It’s a disgrace for the entire community here at MIT, as the supporters of this petition have shown with their signatures.”

The union represents about 600 facilities workers at MIT, but the petition garnered 1,000 signatures, including from MIT faculty and students.

NEW SHOP ON THE BLOCK? Tulane University employees are seeking to form a union, WWL Louisiana reported. A group of student advisers, office administrators and housing staff delivered a letter to Tulane President Michael Fitts last week seeking voluntary recognition of the union. The university declined that request, according to WWL.

“Our employees are best served by maintaining a direct working relationship with university leadership—one that allows us to address concerns promptly and work together on the issues that matter most,” a university spokesperson told WWL.

The group subsequently filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board, setting in motion a union election. Would-be union leaders told NOLA.com that so far 65 percent of the 700-some administrative and clerical employees that would be eligible for the bargaining unit have signaled their support.

Sergio Vasquez, who works at the university’s Center for Public Service, told NOLA.com he hopes forming a union will lead to better pay.

“I’m tired of watching my friends have to work two or three jobs to get by,” he said. “It’s about dignity and living up to Tulane values.”