UNH-GEU-UAW

NH PELRB. A 5-member board, appointed by the governor to oversee negotiations and disputes between public employers and public employee organizations (i.e. unions).

Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). A legally binding contract, negotiated between the employer and the union, which stipulates the conditions of employment for all represented workers. These contracts often outline wages and pay increases, benefits, grievance procedures, time off, etc. Importantly, the employer is legally required to uphold their end of the contract.

Bargaining unit. A group of employees “within the same organizational unit” or “with the same conditions of employment.” The PELRB ultimately decides who is in the bargaining unit.

We are graduate student workers forming a union in order to improve our research and working conditions at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). Our work as researchers and teachers not only drives the academic mission at UNH, but also produces valuable knowledge that can benefit the greater community. While we work across many specializations, our dedication to our work unites us all.

By forming a student worker union, we can build a stronger, more democratic voice for us at UNH, with more power to negotiate for improvements and to secure our rights and conditions into a legally-binding contract.

Forming a union with the United Auto Workers (UAW) in particular means joining tens of thousands of student workers and other higher education employees who are already part of the UAW–this includes student workers and other academic workers at Harvard University, Columbia University, University of Connecticut, University of Massachusetts, University of California, and University of Washington. By working together with these and other academic unions across the country, we can also build political power beyond UNH to impact funding policies at the national, state, and local levels that shape our experience in academia.

A labor union is an organization of workers formed to promote their shared interests in the workplace. A labor union is also a non-profit organization with the legal right to bargain collectively on behalf of a group of workers. The end goal of this bargaining process is a ‘collective bargaining agreement’

A graduate employee or worker is any graduate student performing teaching or research at UNH and receiving a stipend or other salaried form of compensation. Typically, we have the titles of Graduate Assistant, Research Assistant, or Teaching Assistant.

The Graduate Student Senate (GSS) does important advocacy, but UNH administration does not have any obligation to follow their recommendations, and indeed, GSS resolutions routinely go ignored. After our union is certified, GSS will continue to shape curricula, degree requirements, and student services for the 2000+ graduate students at UNH. 

Meanwhile, UNH-GEU-UAW can represent the workplace needs for the graduate workers at UNH. Just as faculty have both a senate and a union, so can graduate workers. Many current GSS senators agree with this conclusion, and are members and organizers in UNH-GEU-UAW!

At other universities, graduate unions and GSS have worked together to help raise standards, while simultaneously being able to focus on their broad communities to improve their university.

It is illegal for employers to fire, punish, or retaliate against you for joining or participating in a union.  You also have the right to unionize regardless of immigration status. 

Graduate workers have been forming unions for decades with significant international student participation throughout those campaigns. In those years, none have reported problems with their visa as a result of their organizing effort.

Additionally, the purpose of forming a union is to stand up for each other. If a student worker was targeted for participating in the union, the rest of the community would stand up and call on the administration to stop that type of behavior. We would follow in the footsteps of other unions such as AAUP-UNH and UNHLU to fight against retaliation. It is our right as workers to make this decision collectively, and it is inappropriate for an administrator to use threats and intimidation to discourage us from making that choice.The best way for us to protect ourselves against retaliation is to be well-organized and show our strength in numbers.

Yes! Your right to unionize is not impacted by your visa status, and your visa is not impacted by your participation in a union. International student workers have the same legal right to join a union as US citizens. International employees have been instrumental in organizing and running the student worker unions at Harvard University, Columbia University, University of Connecticut, University of Massachusetts, University of California, University of Washington, and New York University. Unionization can result in protections that are especially valuable for international academic employees.

Sources:

• Memorandum of understanding between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Labor
• Memorandum of understanding between the NLRB and the US Department of Justice’s Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC)
• Immigration and Nationality Act: 8 U.S.C. § 1324b

https://www.nlrb.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/basic-page/node-3024/immigrant_employee_rights_one_pager_english_pdf_21860.pdf

With roughly 100,000 academic workers, the UAW has become a powerful organization advocating to improve conditions for international students and scholars. For years, the UAW has fought hard to ensure that the contributions of guest workers are elevated and that the terms and conditions of their employment are improved. Recently the UAW helped lead the fight against Executive Orders issued by former President Trump that targeted international students and scholars.

In October of 2020, UAW Academic Workers mobilized against a proposed rule by ICE to shorten visa stays for international scholars; thousands of public comments were submitted, including by the President of the UAW International. In July of 2020, thanks to direct action by UAW Academic Workers across the country, in addition to efforts by allies at universities and in government, ICE backed down from its directive to deport international students taking online classes due to COVID-19. In 2017, the UAW International filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case challenging the Trump administration’s travel ban. The UAW also helped lead the fight to enhance the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program as an important path for international student workers to work in the US after completion of their PhD.

UAW academic unions also provide more resources for researchers on visas at the local level. Columbia University postdocs have used their union to fight for international researchers who could not return to the US during the COVID-19 pandemic to be able to work remotely and, more recently, put pressure on the Columbia administration and engaged allies in Congress to support researchers stranded abroad.

Yes! Lecturers, tenure-track & tenured faculty, law faculty, and campus police are unionized. Current contracts for lecturers and tenure-track faculty include yearly wage increases, workload protections, access to neutral arbitration for grievance procedures, rules governing termination of employment, paid parental leave, access to parking, and other benefits.

Yes! Graduate workers at public universities in every New England state are unionized or in the process of unionizing: Maine (UAW), Vermont (UAW), UMass Amherst (UAW), UMass Boston (UAW), UMass Lowell (UAW), UMass Dartmouth (AFT), UConn (UAW), and Rhode Island (NEA)

Other UAW chapters: Harvard, MIT, NYU, Columbia, the University of California system, Northeastern Other graduate unions: Dartmouth (UE), Cornell (UE), Princeton (UE), University of New Mexico (UE), SUNY Stony Brook (CWA), University of Oregon (AFT), Yale, BU, Brown, Fordham (CWA), Rutgers (AAUP)

Our graduate student organizers chose UAW after careful consideration of our options for union affiliation. We approached them to request affiliation. UNH-GEU started with, is run by, and works for graduate workers at UNH, with the support and resources of the UAW.

The UAW represents more than 100,000 academic workers across the United States, including more graduate student employees and postdocs than any other union. In the last eight years alone over 40,000 academic workers around the country have chosen to become part of the UAW.

Read more here about UAW success helping academic workers negotiate concrete improvements to wages, benefits and workplace rights.

The UAW has particular experience with helping to negotiate and enforce strong student worker contracts. Most recently, student workers at Columbia University in NYC voted by 96.7% to ratify their first contract with a majority participating. Harvard student workers approved their contract in 2021.

In 2022, the University of California recognized Student Researchers United-UAW as representative for more than 17,000 workers, after a supermajority of UC student researchers signed cards selecting SRU-UAW as their union. Last year, graduate workers at Northeastern University, USC, and many other universities voted overwhelmingly to join the UAW. 

In addition to drawing on the UAWʼs wide experience bargaining contracts with university administrators, we can exercise a stronger political voice through the UAW. With active members at more than 60 major campuses across the US, the UAW has become a strong advocate on policy issues that matter to us as academics, such as federal support for science funding and enhancing the rights of international research scientists.

We, the graduate student workers at UNH, do! We vote on all major issues and decisions that we make. During the process of forming a union, we will collectively: 

• Decide if  we have a union (voting yes means we have a union!)
• Elect our bargaining committee, who will present our goals and interests to the admins, and bargain for our first union contract
• Fill out bargaining surveys to identify our collective priorities
• Vote on our bargaining goals, ensuring the bargaining committee is on the right path to our first contract
• Vote on our final contract, ensuring it addresses our issues which drove us to organize!

Collective bargaining is a process, protected by NH law, that equalizes the power relationship between employees and their employer.

Under collective bargaining, UNH student workers would elect representatives to negotiate on equal footing with the UNH Administration and put the terms of our employment into a legally binding contract. Through collective bargaining, student workers and other academic workers in the UAW have successfully negotiated improved wages and benefits, stronger protections against discrimination and harassment, expanded family-friendly benefits like paid leave and childcare subsidies, and other important provisions.

Without a union, UNH has unilateral power to change our conditions or decide whether or not to make improvements. For example, UNH decides unilaterally whether or not to make sure we get paid on time or whether our salaries keep up with the cost of living in the area.

Membership dues are important because they provide the resources necessary for effective representation. In the UAW, we do not pay dues until we have gone through the bargaining process and voted democratically to approve our first contract. Dues are critical for providing us with independent resources that are not controlled by the University; we use them to ensure we have appropriate legal, bargaining, community, and staff support to represent all student workers. UAW membership dues are nationally 1.44% of gross monthly income, with some locals democratically deciding to have dues up to 2%, though this could only be changed by membership action.

No one can be required to become a member of the Union after we have a contract. In most contracts, everyone in the bargaining unit must receive all of the benefits of the contract.

High union membership is important because it means we have more power and more resources available to enforce our rights under our contract, campaign for the best possible future contracts with the administration, and help other academic workers form their own unions. Under the UAW, there is a one-time initiation fee, which ranges from $10 to $50 and is determined democratically in local union bylaws approved by members.

The value of increased wages and benefits in the first contract typically outweighs the cost of dues, often leading to overwhelming majority approval of those agreements.

It takes resources to have a strong union, from the earliest stages of forming a union for the first time, to bargaining and campaigning for the first contract, to enforcing rights under an existing contract, and advocating on policy issues that matter to membership. Dues provide those resources. See below for more information.

Dues generally cover all of the day to day cost of having a strong union, including paying for the best legal representation, staffing, rent, equipment, and supplies.

Most of the day-to-day work enforcing the contract and representing our membership is provided by the Local Union. Under the UAW Constitution, the Local Union automatically keeps 27% of dues money to support its expenses: staffing for representation, rent, equipment, supplies, etc. The rest of the dues is allocated to the International Unionʼs General Fund (26%), Strike and Defense Fund (44%), and Community Action Program (CAP) (3%). UNH graduate workers would be supported by these funds as described below. Depending on the overall financial health of the Strike and Defense Fund (if its net worth is $500M or greater), an additional allocation of dues called a “rebate” is given back to the Local and International Union. So, in typical months, the portion of dues retained by the local union is roughly 37%.

For some great examples of UAW local unions helping workers defend their rights, see this summary of successful grievance handling at the University of Washington, or these stories about unionized postdocs fighting pregnancy discrimination at the University of California, or how graduate assistants at UConn took on sexual harassment.

The portion of dues allocated to the International Union would support UNH student workers in the following ways:

• Technical experts to help negotiate on equal terms with UNH;
• Health insurance experts who can take on the Universityʼs consultants in order to pursue the best benefits for the best price;
• Researchers who can help analyze University finances;
• Legal advice where necessary;
• Experienced negotiators to help achieve our goals, both at the bargaining table and in terms of developing an overall campaign to win a strong contract;
• Support for new organizing campaigns (for example, the resources supporting UNH-GEU-UAW come from existing UAW membersʼ dues);
• Political action: 3% of dues go toward the UAW Community Action Program (CAP), which supports progressive community and political action, including legislative and other policy advocacy on issues that matter to UAW members.  For example, the UAW advocates strongly for fair, comprehensive immigration reform and expanded federal support for research funding, among other topics.

At other institutions where student workers have unions, collective bargaining has not produced these results. Because all union decisions will be made by the student workers, we will collectively decide what to ask for in bargaining at UNH.

And, as a union, we can request UNHʼs financial information that affects student workers, which will make it possible for us to be well-informed and conscientious as we engage in bargaining. Both the union membership and the administration have to agree on a contract and neither party would want a result that hurts the quality of research happening at UNH. Collective bargaining simply means we can negotiate as equals in order to hold UNH accountable to do the best it can do.

Empirically, the overall number of RAs and TAs has grown at the University of Washington since unionization, as has the number of student workers at the University of California, Harvard University, and Columbia University. Overall grant revenue has also increased at UW and UC over those years, showing that these institutions remain competitive in recruiting top talent to their research programs.

In addition, many PIs appreciate working with unionized researchers, because a union contract means PIs do not have to individually negotiate every term and condition of employment (from wages, to health care, to leave, to childcare, to non-discrimination protections, to vacation, to appointment letter terms, etc.) and instead can focus on their research.