Unionized graduate student employees at Syracuse University are negotiating their first contract with the school. More than 100 gathered on the snowy snowy SU quad to show support for collective bargaining talks.
There are two big issues for these unionized students. Sociology Department teaching assistant Lauren Ashley said pay is one.
"Masters are making as low as $20,000 a year and so we're really looking to just make a lot more than that to feel to make a wage that we can thrive here in Syracuse, we can afford to pay our rent, where we can afford kind of all the things that you need to live here," Ashley said.
Math Department teaching assistant Joseph Beckmann said what students pay for health insurance is also key.
"It's subsidized 76%," Beckmann said. "We are asking it to be subsidized 100% and also to subsidize dependents. And the university does not want to do that."
About 1,100 Ph.D. and master’s students, who serve as teaching, research, or administrative assistants, unionized last April and are in the midst of negotiations on the union's first contract.
There has been a growing number of grad students organizing at higher education institutions; including SUNY-ESF and Cornell last year. Ashley is excited to be a part of that movement.
"It's been a wave across the whole country of grads forming these unions and finally starting to get the conditions we need," Ashley said. "And it should have been really, really incredible to be a part of it. It's really motivating, it's really inspiring."
