STORRS— University of Connecticut graduate students who work as teaching or research assistants won union recognition Thursday — the first group of graduate assistants recognized in the state.
The UConn student employees won union recognition Friday after the State Board of Labor Relations (SBLR) verified that a majority of the workers signed cards authorizing the Graduate Employee Union/United Auto Workers (GEU-UAW) to represent them in collective bargaining.
Graduate assistants at 60 institutions across the country have organized, including the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and New York University.
The University says 2,135 graduate assistants are employed as teaching assistants in classes reaching thousands of students, as well as research assistants involved in projects that bring in $150 million a year to the university in grants and contracts.
Madelynn von Baeyer, a UConn graduate student in anthropology and a member of the organizing committee, said, “It’s very important we’re recognized as employees, and we want to be able to have a say in our terms of employment just like every other employee in the United States.”
Von Baeyer said UConn graduate assistants have been frustrated with “unilateral changes” the university had made resulting in higher health insurance co-payments and an increase in student fees from $800 a semester to $1,100 a semester.
Stipends for graduate students range from about $20,159 to $23,583.
UConn student Cera Fisher is a PhD. candidate in evolutionary biology and gets a stipend to teach and conduct research for the university. Fisher says rising health care costs and fees have made things tough on her budget. She has authorized the GEU-UAW to represent her.
“It’s not so much that things are bad, but things have started to change quickly,” Fisher said.
A major hurdle for the union’s formation was cleared on April 7 when the UConn Board of Trustees approved the student workers’ labor agreement.
Eighty five percent of UConn employees are already part of a labor union.
“The university has been, and will continue to be, neutral with regard to this effort. Individual graduate students are free to make their own decisions,” said UConn spokesperson Stephanie Reitz in a written statement.
Student leaders say they hope a union will give grad students a bigger voice at the negotiating table and make the university a more attractive destination for future graduate assistants.
“We’ll have more political pull nationwide. We’ll be able to be nationally recognized as a labor force,” said Von Baeyer.
Von Baeyer says union organizers are starting to gather input from its members.
UConn’s grad assistant union would be made up of students at all campuses, except for UConn health center, where the graduate assistants are under a separate payroll system.