BLOOMINGTON — Graduate students at Indiana University are blocking the entry way to classrooms in their second strike since 2021.
“We have a three day strike,” explained student David Garner. “It's a combination of a long series of events because grad workers want union recognition and a living wage.”
Back in 2022, graduate workers at Indiana University protested for weeks to receive higher wages. Students define that strike a success as their wages went from $15,000 to $22,000 a year.
Today, students are protesting that the continued rise of inflation has them demanding yet another raise.
“The cost of living for workers is around $41,000 a year, I'd have to double check the number, but most of us make well below that,” shared Garner.
Garner, alongside other graduate students, are asking their yearly wage for half-time/20-hour-a-week appointments be increased to $27,973 a year.
“It’s hard for many students to decide whether they're going to pay rent, buy groceries or pay for medicine. We're severely underpaid for the amount of labor that we do here on on campus,” explained Garner.
Only Indiana University’s Board of Trustees can recognize unions on campus. In 2022, the Board announced that it will not recognize any graduate unions.
In a statement provided to WRTV on Wednesday, an Indiana University spokesperson explained what the school has done for graduate students.
The minimum stipend for SAAs in 2024-2025 will be $23,000 for a half-time/20-hour-a-week appointment plus health insurance and fee remission. Additionally, through the SAA Affairs Committee of the Bloomington Faculty Council, stipend rates will be benchmarked regularly to ensure minimum stipends remain in the top half of Big Ten peers. Even with these efforts, we continue to look for opportunities to best support graduate and undergraduate students on campus.
Garner is worried that a lack of support from the University could have ripple effects that could hurt the University long-term.
“I think the board and administration are doing a great injustice to their students, their workers, and their faculty," said Garner. "People should be really upset that the Board of Trustees and administration continually refuses to listen to what we're asking for.”
The University’s full statement is below:
The Board of Trustees made it very clear that efforts to enhance graduate education at IU are best accomplished through existing channels of shared governance and collaboration.
To that end and since 2021, the Bloomington campus has made a priority of addressing concerns put forward by our student academic appointees (SAA). With multiple raises announced in the last two years, IUB has increased minimum stipends for SAAs by more than 50%, in addition to eliminating mandatory graduate student and course-specific fees. The minimum stipend for SAAs in 2024-2025 will be $23,000 for a half-time/20-hour-a-week appointment plus health insurance and fee remission. Additionally, through the SAA Affairs Committee of the Bloomington Faculty Council, stipend rates will be benchmarked regularly to ensure minimum stipends remain in the top half of Big Ten peers. Even with these efforts, we continue to look for opportunities to best support graduate and undergraduate students on campus.
All student appointees are expected to fulfill the terms of the agreements they signed for this academic year, and our highest priority will be to continue instruction and research with as limited disruption as possible.
