Graduate students from Chicago-area private universities protested downtown on Thursday against a proposed Trump administration rule that would revoke their status as employees.
Without employee status, universities are not required by the National Labor Relations Board to recognize student unions.
In 2016, an Obama-era NLRB ruled that graduate students were employees and had the right to unionize. But with Trump in the White House, a new Republican majority on the NLRB has been poised to overturn that decision.
Officials at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago and Loyola University of Chicago have, meanwhile, rebuffed their student unions’ fight for recognition.
The proposed rule, approved in September, becomes official on Dec. 16, barring an extension.
A series of protests and walk-ins have occurred at the three campuses over the past calendar year, even resulting in the arrest of seven activists on Loyola’s campus. Thursday’s graduate students joined protesters in Boston and Washington D.C. in their dissent of the new policy.
Students are fighting to unionize for the right to better healthcare, higher wages and sexual harassment protection. They argue that their roles teaching classes and helping in research make them indispensable to their institutions.
“The fundamental thing is that graduate students do the labor at universities,” said Claudio Gomez Gonzales, the co-president of the Graduate Students Union at the University of Chicago. “They are the backbone of these institutions. We do the teaching. We do the research.”
“Every day, I’m sitting there grading. I’m teaching students,” added Mauricio Maluff Masi, a PhD candidate at Northwestern, who joined other graduate students Thursday outside the Chicago office of the NLRB in the Loop.
“I’m answering students’ questions when they come to office hours,” Masi added. “My fellow grad workers are organizing conferences and bringing proceeds to the university. They publish papers. And they call that not work.”
They’re protesting for symbolic reasons, as well.
“On a psychological level, it’s offensive and condescending to say that I’m not a worker,” said Laura Colaneri, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago. “I know I’m a worker. Not to be insulting to 22-year-olds or anything, [but] I’m not a 22-year-old. I’ve had experience in the workplace before. I took a pay-cut to come here because I really valued the community and work that I’d be doing.”
Graduate student union movements across the country have helped maintain or increase benefits and wages for those involved.
The Loyola Graduate Workers’ Union helped provide dental coverage for its graduate student workers.
Graduate student union movements at CUNY and NYU have implemented parental leave and increased mental health support.
Northwestern removed a cap on mental health appointment copays in September, turning a normally $20 per visit fee to around $33. After a series of complaints by the Northwestern Graduate Workers, the policy was reversed for in-network providers.
“It’s not cheap to go to a therapist,” Masi said. “If we had a recognized union this wouldn’t have happened in the first place. We would have had a contract. If they wanted to change their policy, they would have had to negotiate with us.”
