The Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition issued a new demand letter to the IU Board of Trustees, seeking the termination of President Pamela Whitten.
In the letter released Nov. 1, the IGWC listed three demands: the termination of Whitten’s presidency, the revocation of IU’s new expressive activity policy (UA-10) and the establishment of a formal bargaining agreement with IGWC. The demands also come with an ultimatum: if IU doesn’t respond by Nov. 20, the IGWC will begin a new campaign with the slogan “Whitten Goes, Union Grows,” and hold a rally at noon Dec. 6.
Elijah Beaton, a graduate worker in the history department, said in the press release announcing the demand letter that the rally would help build a “coalition” of faculty, staff, graduate students and undergraduate students who are unhappy with how the current IU administration has treated them.
“It’s a moment for us to all join together and put IU back into the hands of those who actually care for the university,” Beaton said in the press release.
In the past year, there have been votes of no confidence in Whitten’s administration from the Bloomington Faculty Council, the IGWC and at least 13 other IU departments and organizations across campus.
The demands
Katharina Schmid-Schmidsfelden, a doctoral candidate in the Germanic studies department and co-chair of the IGWC’s executive committee, said that its first demand is Whitten’s resignation because she has been “hostile” to the “IU community, to the quality of research, of education on this campus,” including the IGWC’s efforts to organize and be recognized as a union by the university.
“Terminating her presidency would, we hope, allow a better way for our union to be recognized, to actively engage in a bargaining situation,” she said.
The demand letter states that Whitten “has betrayed the research and educational missions of IU,” and that her leadership is “disastrous and neglectful.”
Second, is the retraction of IU’s new expressive activity policy, which the demand letter says is contrary to the ideas of free speech ingrained in the research, teaching and education at IU.
On Aug. 29, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against IU for the new policy, stating that it violates the First Amendment.
The policy came as a result of the pro-Palestinian protests that occurred in Dunn Meadow in April. The new policy forbids expressive activity that substantially disrupts “official activities, business, or operations of the University,” according to the policy.
Many student groups, faculty groups, members of the Bloomington community, activists and others have condemned the policy for being too restrictive and discouraging free speech.
Schmid-Schmidsfelden said she believes the policy has been enforced unevenly.
“It has been very hostile to only certain groups of political organizers,” she said.
Michael McCarthy, a doctoral student studying political philosophy and financial officer for the IGWC, agreed. In anticipation of IU hosting ESPN College GameDay, groups of students camped out and held signs on campus overnight on Oct. 25 before the day of IU football’s game against Washington, which some considered a violation of the policy.
“They stop the pro-Palestine protesters on Dunn Meadow and would likely stop us if we were to do a large action on campus because there’s an incentive for them to stop speech that they disagree with, and there’s incentives for them to allow certain forms of expression that they think make the university look good,” he said. “There’s an unwritten set of rules that they’re enforcing here.”
McCarthy said the IGWC is anticipating that the university might try to implement the policy at their rally Dec. 6. He clarified that the IGWC will follow the policy, but they are “not certain that (IU’s) going to follow the policy.”
The final demand listed in the letter is that IU responds to the over 1,800-member group, recognizes it as a union and participates in establishing a formal bargaining agreement.
“Legally speaking, we have no pathway to recognition,” McCarthy said.
In 2022, the IGWC went on strike for about four weeks and was able to receive 56% raises from the university, even though they received no formal recognition as a union. Graduate workers’ stipend increased from a minimum $15,000 a year for a 10-month contract to a minimum $22,000 a year.
McCarthy said typically after this happens at a university there is a bargaining session and that this didn’t happen.
The IGWC also went on strike for three days in April after it delivered 1,300 signed union cards and a letter to Whitten and did not receive a response. Union cards demonstrate a student’s membership to the union. Most union cards signed by graduate students are digital, but the IGWC also hosts card drives and offers physical copies for students to sign. The letter called for a bargaining relationship with IU administration and adequate wages.
“I feel like the form of recognizing us as an entity is to respond to things we do,” Schmid-Schmidsfelden said. “A year ago, we asked for a vote to just let us vote on this matter, to just have people express their opinions, and we didn't even get a reaction to that.”
David Garner, a doctoral student at in comparative literature and religious studies and the press officer for the IGWC, said the university did not respond to a vote by the Bloomington Faculty Council to recognize the IGWC union.
According to Garner, being recognized as a union would significantly improve conditions for graduate workers.
“Not only would it fix the problem of graduate workers living in precarity, we think it would attract better students,” he said. “Potential graduate students are attracted to places where they know they’re going to get a good income and have people protecting them and ultimately at the end of the day are protected by an official bargaining unit.”
McCarthy said IU is “shooting themselves in the foot” and is hurting its reputation by not recognizing the graduate workers as a union because doing so would make IU more competitive.
The toll on graduate workers
Garner also explained that being ignored by the university takes a mental toll on graduate workers.
“You put in hours and hours and years and years of your life into researching something and then to then go take it to students into the world and then, you can’t,” he said. “You’re too busy having to work another job, or you’re too busy just trying to pay bills, just to be able to get to do what you love.”
Garner said that graduate workers are “begging” the university to give them a living wage.
“So that we can do our jobs well, so that we can do our jobs passionately, so that we’re not distracted by other things and that we’re not stressed out all the time,” he said. “It’s heartbreaking.”
McCarthy said that the only time that the university has listened and interacted with the IGWC is when they go on strike.
“We would just prefer that they dealt with us in a way that wasn’t going to require us to stop teaching because we love the work we do,” he said. “For us to have to do something to speak to the university that requires us to stop doing that work is distressing to us.”
McCarthy said he loves being a teaching assistant and that IU’s treatment of its graduate workers says something about the university.
“I want to go and do this for the rest of my life, but to know that a university is sort of run on graduate misery causes me some distress,” he said.
Garner said that in the end, deciding not to listen to faculty affects the undergraduate experience because so many undergraduate students take classes from graduate workers who are being pushed to the limit.
Graduate workers face financial struggles
According to Garner, the MIT Living Wage Calculator determined that the cost of living in Monroe County is $41,441 per year. Most graduate workers have 10-month contracts, making their cost of living for 10 months $34,534. Currently, they are making $23,000 per year, which is a $11,534 difference.
McCarthy said graduate workers are given a 20-hour maximum for work each week, teaching classes and running laboratories among other duties. This does not include the time it takes to do grading for the classes they teach, to conduct research, to write a dissertation or to study for exams and benchmarks.
Schmid-Schmidsfelden said she teaches German for two sections four to five times a week and must do grading for those 60 students alongside writing a dissertation and doing classwork.
“We as graduate workers are expected to be — all at the same time — researchers, teachers and students,” Garner said. “That takes up way more time than a normal 40 hour a week job, and it's insane the extra work we have to do to supplement that. We deserve a living wage.”
Many graduate students must find jobs outside of this to stay afloat. However, international students are bound to the 20-hour maximum from the university because of their student visa as a student and are not permitted to find other work.
“They can’t take second jobs,” Garner said. “They just have to grin and bear it unfortunately and live in precarity”
Garner also said that he has seen multiple of his colleagues give up their studies because they can’t keep up with various bills and the rising cost of living. Many, he said, rely on their families, a crutch that not all can depend on.
Garner himself is in this boat. His wife is a physician’s assistant with a full-time salary, but they also have two kids and a mortgage. Garner works a second job as a contractor in web development and picks up second and third jobs as needed to help pay the bills for his family. He said many other students are in positions just like him.
“(People) think that it's some rite of passage that you should just squander, or you should live in poverty until you finally get a job,” he said. “I think that’s quite silly. No one should have to live in precarity or have to choose between paying for groceries or medicine, or rent, utilities, whatever it is.”
McCarthy said many graduate students end up in debt after leaving IU.
“They end up unable to pay their bills. They end up in a worse financial shape than when they enter grad school,” he said. “And this can have sort of lifelong effects.”
CORRECTION: This article has been updated to correct a misheard word in David Garner's quotes.
