Author: Graduate Labor Organization

After years of organizing and taking action together, graduate workers at Brown are finally starting the academic year with a fair contract! For the first time, there are enforceable provisions protecting our working hours, our wages, our health benefits, our right to respect in the workplace, to name a few. Congratulations on these huge wins!

With our contract negotiated, we can now take on new projects: holding Brown accountable to the commitments made in the contract, ensuring the university community is protected from the covid-19 pandemic, reimagining safety and realizing racial justice at Brown, and so much more.

Before we embark on these projects, we will need to ratify a constitution that governs the basic functions of our union and elect union leadership who will take on key responsibilities of running the organization each of us has helped to build. Members are invited to join a constitution town hall to be held Wednesday September 2nd at 6 pm, at which we will go over the basic features of this document and undertake some activities to demonstrate how we can make use of it to fight for what we need at Brown. We will also discuss a proposed budget so members can make an informed decision about how much revenue we need to collect to support our fights to make Brown a better place to work. We will circulate a draft of the constitution a few days ahead of the town hall. After the town hall, we will hold an online vote to ratify our constitution on September 3rd and 4th.

Please register for Wednesday’s town hall here. Our first election will be held by U.S. Mail, so please take a moment to update your mailing address here, even if you cannot attend the town hall event.

We are pleased to announce that members have ratified our collective bargaining agreement with university administration with a 95% yes vote. The final count was 446 yes to 25 no. This is a huge step toward securing rights and recognition for graduate workers at Brown, and the first collective bargaining agreement of its kind in the Ivy League. We’ll be reaching out in the coming weeks with ways to plug in and enforce our agreement.

A few things to keep in mind:

• Graduate assistants working over the summer should expect to see their raise reflected in their first paycheck after 1 July 2020.
• Graduate workers should expect their $400 in COVID relief by 31 October 2020 paycheck.
• Graduate workers with spouses, domestic partners, and children on their Brown healthcare and/or dental can expect 75% coverage to take effect 1 July 2020.

While working hard to secure this contract, we have also been gearing up for other important campaigns that affect our campus community, so that we can use our union power to fight for justice.

• Reopening: Many research assistants are already back on campus, but grads have not had a real say in the process. If you would like to add your voice to the reopening conversation, please email Audrey Massmann at audreylmassmann@gmail.com to get plugged in.
• Racial Justice: The Social Justice Working Group and the Organizing Committee are joining activists and organizers from various departments on demands to protect black lives. Please email standupforgrads@gmail.com to join the fight for racial justice on campus.

It’s been a pleasure representing graduate workers at the bargaining table. This is only the beginning.

Solidarity,

The SUGSE Bargaining Committee
Kaity Hajdarovic, Co-chair
Rithika Ramamurthy, Co-chair
Gabriele Borg
Nicole Dusang
Marlon Jimenez Oviedo
Sierra Kaufman
Mirjam Paninski
Kaitlyn Quaranta
Siraj Sindhu
Max Weinreich

Watch and share a livestream with workers whom Brown has left without a job. We begin in half an hour at noon EST at facebook.com/BrownSUGSE

This coming week, our union, SUGSE, is planning 5 days of action, corresponding to our 5 demands for COVID relief, to make sure the university hears that grads need more support in the face of the disruptions caused by COVID. Click here to sign up to contribute your voice!

Monday, April 13 – Don’t fire if you won’t hire

Tuesday, April 14 – Free COVID treatment and paid sick leave

Wednesday, April 15 – Ensure equity, especially for international students and grad parents

Thursday, April 16 – An additional full calendar year with funding for all grads

Friday, April 17 – Contract now!

Click here to find out more and to sign up to contribute your voice. We need every voice to make sure we win the protections and benefits we need to do our work successfully.

Graduate student workers demand greater protections amidst the fast-changing and dramatic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis. The closure of labs, interruption of fieldwork, and shuttering of libraries has impeded our academic progress. The cancellation of conferences and symposia has paused professionalization. Many of us have had to leave the country or take care of dependents, and some of us will become ill ourselves. The global recession will affect all graduate students approaching the job market. Brown has a responsibility to act quickly to minimize economic insecurity, provide better healthcare, and protect graduate students and other vulnerable university employees.

In order to protect graduate workers and our broader community, Brown must:

1. Settle a fair contract,
2. Provide a year-long extension of funding and increase summer funding,
3. Ensure equity by protecting international grads’ visas and positions & providing one-time financial assistance to grad parents,
4. Cover all costs of coronavirus testing and treatment & guarantee paid sick leave, and;
5. Commit to a termination freeze for all university employees.

Click here, or scroll below, to read the detailed explanation of our Demands for Immediate Relief for Graduate Workers. In the face of a global public health emergency, these demands represent the absolute minimum protections. We ask that the University immediately implement these provisions to protect public health and the well-being of the Brown graduate student community. RSVP to join us at the General Membership Meeting call next Weds. at 6 to start taking action to make this a reality!

We know that the changes we propose will require revising budgets, but our livelihoods are at stake. The dramatic impacts of COVID-19 aren’t an abstract threat; they are happening to us and our families, now. Brown can uphold its commitment to its graduate workers, and to the whole University community, by guaranteeing stability in this time of intense disruption.

Over the next few weeks we will be reaching out to grad workers individually to hear and share their stories. To any grad worker: SUGSE is here for you. To all workers on campus: we are in this together, and SUGSE stands in solidarity with you. To anyone who wants help organizing their coworkers: email standupforgrads@gmail.com and let’s make a plan.

Demands for Immediate Relief for Graduate Workers

• 1. Contract now

Commit to quickly finishing a contract with SUGSE that would guarantee stable funding and support. The COVID-19 crisis accentuates the need for a recognized, independent union and a fixed-term contract for graduate student workers. With a settled contract, graduate workers can teach and complete research no matter what economic disruptions this crisis brings, and be confident in the university’s commitment to fair pay and benefits.

• 2. Stop the clock and extend our funding 

Extend our employment, our positions in academic programs, and our visas by one full calendar year. Graduate students’ work and study have been radically disrupted. We are attempting to mitigate the strains of online-only teaching, cancelled fieldwork and research trips, delayed and collapsed experiments, and a frozen academic job market. Tuition-paying graduate students have invested thousands of dollars in their education and will miss out on crucial aspects of their training as well as face a severely constrained job market.  Many of us are now parenting full-time or caring for family members who are sick. We fear becoming sick ourselves. Normal progress toward degrees is impossible for most of us to sustain. 

Guaranteed full summer pay for graduate workers. Graduate students will still need to seek supplemental income over the summer, though opportunities for grants, fellowships, and other remunerated work will be reduced. Graduate students require full summer stipends comparable to their AY monthly stipends.

• 3. Ensure equity

Protect international grads’ visa status while working and learning conditions change. Maintain stipend pay and insurance coverage for any graduate students  unable to return to the United States after returning home or traveling abroad for research. 

One-time special financial assistance for all graduate parents. Graduate student parents are facing some of the greatest interruptions in their ability to complete scholarly work and teach during the crisis. The university should double their child care subsidy through the next calendar year.

Guarantee that relief policies will be nondiscriminatory. Commit to protecting the interests and resources of underrepresented and minority graduate student workers.

• 4. Protect our health

Fully cover the costs of COVID-19 testing, treatment, and eventual vaccination for grad workers and their dependents.  Extend healthcare and institutional affiliation by six months for graduating students. 

Keep the campus healthy and prevent the new infections by offering unlimited paid sick leave and paid family care leave for every Brown employee through the duration of the pandemic. 

• 5. Commit to community

Don’t fire if you won’t hire. Commit to a termination and layoff freeze for all university employees to last at least as long as the university hiring freeze, and renew all current contracts, including those about to expire, for at least the length of the hiring freeze.

If you were at our cacerolazo this week, you know that we brought the noise! Almost a hundred and fifty graduate student workers and allies marched from the Van Wickle Gates, banging pots and pans and raising their voices together to say: CONTRACT NOW! The members of the bargaining committee went into that round of negotiations feeling strong and proud to represent your needs, and stood up to tough questions about what we want and why we deserve it. We were able to do this because of you.

The administration was forced to acknowledge the fact that they are not just dealing with a few people at the table, they are reckoning with a union that has support from a strong and growing base. They were unable to make a counter to our proposal and cancelled the session the following day. Now we won’t see them for another three weeks.

In that time, we need to continue to show the university that we are not going to settle for less than what we deserve. We deserve better wages, better benefits, and a fair contract—but we aren’t going to get these without a fight. It has become clear that if we want to win a contract, we have to keep standing up for one another and making ourselves seen and heard.

Come join us on the picket lines this month to make more noise and march for your union:

• Our first PICKET on Thursday, March 5th at 12 PM on the main green! If you can’t be there, make sure to wear your Contract Now button or SUGSE t-shirt that day.
  
• GENERAL MEMBERS MEETING on Wednesday, March 11th, in Friedman 101, to discuss next steps and strategies for finishing this thing! RSVP here to help us know how many to expect.
• Even bigger and louder PICKETS on Thursdays, March 12th and 19th!
• Our next round of bargaining will be on March 18th and 19th.

If we continue to demand together, we will win together!

In solidarity,
Rithika

After months of meetings with the administration, we’re finally getting close to a contract we can be proud of. We’ve already won improved anti-discrimination protections, a grievance procedure, and, for the first time, clear definitions of our work responsibilities. Now, it’s time to fight for higher pay and better health care. It’s time for a contract. But we won’t get there unless the administration takes us seriously. If we want them to make concessions in negotiations, first we need them to see how many of us want to see a FAIR contract NOW!

At our General Members Meeting last week, the room was packed. We talked through our plan for the semester. We have actions planned every week from now until Spring Break. It’s ambitious, it depends on all our members getting involved, and it’s going to make the difference to get us the contract we deserve.

We’re asking you to come to our first major action of the semester, on Feb. 25th, 12:15 PM, gathering at Van Wickle Gates then going with the SUGSE bargaining committee their negotiations with Brown admin. This is going to be a CACEROLAZO: a rally where we make as much noise as we possibly can, with pots, with pans, with whatever you can bring. We’re going to show the administration how many people have a stake in this fight, in a way that they can’t ignore. Will you come make noise with us?
Please make sure to RSVP by filling out this commitment form.

We will also be holding regular leaflets and wear-a-button days, and if admin still won’t listen, we will start holding MASS PICKETS that they won’t be able to ignore. Please tell us if you can commit to participate in the cacerolazo and the pickets by filling out the commitment form.

This is a crucial phase of our negotiations. We need everyone to show up. And if you can help some more, we need your help by volunteering with SUGSE, by organizing colleagues in your department or lab, and by asking undergrads and faculty to support us. You can let us know what you can do on the commitment form. You can also promote the cacerolazo by sharing this Facebook event.

Let’s make some noise and win a fair contract now!

In Solidarity,
Max Weinreich, Mathematics