Rising in Union

Members and organizers of the University of NH’s Graduate Employees United. (Photo Courtesy of Jed Siebert)

Graduate school stipends at the University of NH range from $20,000 to $30,000 and come with few benefits. It’s not enough to cover rent and other expenses, and there is no time for other jobs on top of studies. That is why graduate student workers voted in March to form a bargaining unit called Graduate Employees United under the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW).

Of the nearly 700 graduate research assistants, teaching assistants, and graduate assistants eligible to vote, 455 voted to unionize, with only eight people voting no.

“It was pretty clear that this was what the graduate workers wanted here,” says Jed Siebert, one of the union’s organizers. Siebert, a PhD student in the Natural Resources department at UNH, became involved in union discussions when he was a master’s student in 2021. Coming in as a student, Siebert says, he knew about the unionization movement across the country for graduate workers. “There was strong momentum. And considering the material conditions of graduate workers at UNH, it seemed like a very necessary thing.”

UNH is part of a nationwide student unionizing trend that gained steam since the pandemic. The number of student worker bargaining units increased from 54 in 2021 to 84 in July 2023, according to Inside Higher Ed.

Academic workers now make up nearly one quarter of the UAW’s 400,000 members nationwide. Furthermore, a 2022 Gallup poll found that 71% of people approve of labor unions, the highest percentage since 1965.

Historical Precedents and Recent Momentum
With its roots in the 1960s, graduate student unionization at public universities has surged in recent decades. Private universities faced a legal hurdle as the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) excluded them from organizing until 2000 when the NLRB reversed course, allowing New York University’s graduate student union to be recognized.

There were multiple unionization efforts in the 1990s and 2000s at public universities, with victories at institutions including UMass Boston and Michigan State. The movement gained major momentum in the 2010s. A key factor was the NLRB’s 2016 decision solidifying the right of private university graduate students to unionize. Today, unions have footholds in prestigious schools like NYU, Harvard and Columbia, and momentum is building. Graduate workers at both public and private universities are fighting for better wages, healthcare, and working conditions.

UNH graduate student workers began organizing amidst the uncertainty of the pandemic, and eventually built an organizing committee of workers from over 20 departments. In the spring of 2023, graduate student workers began a campaign for dental and vision coverage, which was recently approved by the university.

Siebert says the issues at UNH are the same as they are around the country. “The efforts to unionize really started off with our working conditions and pay,” he says. “This is especially a challenge for international students. A lot of them come here with families and their spouse is unable to work because of their visa status. In these cases, the whole family is surviving on the income of one graduate worker and that’s a really tough situation.”

Dartmouth Basketball Team Sets Precedent
The ivory towers are hardly immune from union efforts. In a historic move, Dartmouth’s men’s basketball team became the first NCAA team in the nation to vote for a union in March 2024. Their efforts garnered national press, including from the BBC and all the major sports networks. By a 13-2 margin, players chose to join the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). This challenged the NCAA’s model of student-athletes as amateurs, sparking debate on issues like compensation, benefits, and educational rights for players who generate significant revenue for colleges.

Christopher Peck, SEIU Local 560 president, which represents maintenance staff at Dartmouth College, as well as the players, says unionization efforts at Dartmouth began with undergraduate advisors and graduate students  a couple of years ago. Since then, the undergraduate advisors and the graduate student workers have both voted to form collective bargaining units.

In late June, after 59 days on strike, Graduate Organized Laborers of Dartmouth—United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America (GOLD-UE)—approved its first contract, winning a 17.5% pay increase (brining their annual stipend to $47,500), expanded benefits, and protections against unfair treatment. Dartmouth College officials declined to answer questions about either the basketball team or the college’s graduate student workers unions.

Peck, who has worked as a master painter at Dartmouth College for over 30 years, says unionization efforts for the basketball team began with one of the players, Cade Haskins, who was also part of the Student Worker Collective Union for the undergraduates working in the dining hall. “He had to work a second job and be a full-time student on top of basketball and everything else,” Peck says, arguing that before unionizing, Haskins would have been eligible for workers compensation for hurting himself while at the dining hall but not while playing basketball. “We eventually met with the team and thought we had a good chance of making it happen.”

Attorney Jake Krupski, who has represented Local 560 for decades, says he was approached by Peck after the team began receiving resistance from the college. “I found [Dartmouth’s] response hypocritical. When graduate students wanted to unionize the college put up little or no fight,” he says. “They put up a huge fight against the unionization of the basketball team, saying a union would kill the collegial nature of sports.”

Krupski says students should be able to decide on a union for themselves, and a lot of misinformation exists about the amateur status of college athletes. “It’s mostly misguided information,” he says.

The Dartmouth men’s basketball team was certified by the NLRB because of the way the law is written around private versus public employees, Krupski says. The vote at Dartmouth, a private university, was made possible after a regional director for the NLRB ruled that Dartmouth basketball players were employees, Krupski says, based on their work in exchange for compensation like gear, food, lodging, and tickets.

“State law governs public employees and because Dartmouth is private it falls under the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Act,” Krupski says. The NLRB allows employees to join and participate in organized activities such as protests and strikes, with or without a union. “[Dartmouth] has filed a petition for review with the NLRB, saying college athletes are not employees, and right now we’re waiting for a decision,” Krupski says.

Peck says the player’s union is hoping to get short- and long-term disability, health insurance and pay. “What if they’re on a bus trip and it goes bad?” he asks.

“Right now the college doesn’t want to work with us,” Peck continues. “They’re saying the NLRB classified us wrong. They’re saying the players aren’t technically employees in their eyes. But many of these students have two or three jobs.”

Rich Gulla, president of the NH Service Employees Association-SEIU, which represents the adjunct faculty at Plymouth State University, says the union is always looking for organizing opportunities. “Unionizing student workers or athletes hasn’t come up on our radar yet,” he says, adding the union is open to the idea. “I think there’s a true gap in wealth and people are seeing that. There’s an income divide that keeps growing in this country and people are fed up.”

Graduate Student Workers Feel Vulnerable
Ray Dinsmore, one of the union organizers at UNH and a member of the bargaining team along with Siebert, is a fifth year PhD candidate in the history department focusing on the history of the civil rights movement. He teaches and does research on similar topics including modern African American history.

Dinsmore describes a serious gum infection from impacted wisdom teeth earlier in his academic career that cost thousands of dollars and strained his finances. “Then just last week I had to get those wisdom teeth extracted,” he says. “I bought my own private dental insurance and it still cost me about $1,100 for three teeth.”

Dinsmore says many people can’t afford some of these procedures. “I was fortunate enough to have some money saved,” he says.  “But I don’t know what I would have done. I would have died.”

Dinsmore says graduate student workers at UNH, depending on the type of assistantship they have, can earn as much as $30,000 per year. But he adds, this isn’t enough.

In the spring semester of 2023, graduate workers began a petition campaign for dental and vision coverage. In June, UNH began offering graduate student workers an opt-in dental care plan that costs $40 per month. Dinsmore says a more comprehensive dental plan could be on the bargaining table for the union. “At this point we don’t know whether we can bargain for this,” he says.  “But just on that front, on the healthcare front, we are a little dispossessed.”

Stephanie George, a second year MFA student studying nonfiction writing in the English department at UNH, is a graduate teaching assistant. George, who says it can be hard at times to make ends meet, lives alone in Dover and says support for the union from the NH Labor Coalition and faculty has been strong. George says she would like to see an accountability process for advisors and better working conditions along with workload protections. “A lot of grad workers end up working way more than what is in the parameters of their appointments,” she says. “And when I say working way more, I mean doing an appointed assistantship takes up much more time than what they were contracted for.”

George says many students pass up on opportunities that exist in other states because they love being in NH. “It’s really special here and we love it, and we want to make the sacrifices to stay,” she says.  “But it’s hard. It’s the housing and job market, it’s all of that. And the university can play a role in that in terms of drawing young, creative, hardworking people in.”

Dinsmore, who is from Massachusetts, says higher education is a doorway and an economic engine for the NH’s economy but UNH could do better keeping people in the state. “Honestly, living here has been much harder than it would have been if I stayed in Massachusetts or Rhode Island,” he says. “Just simply based on the price of education, the everyday amenities, and even some things that I personally value, like diversity. I’m probably not going to stay here, but it doesn’t have to be that way going forward. New Hampshire is a great state.”

Tania deLuzuriaga, a UNH spokesperson, says the University has not taken a position for or against organizing. “Throughout this process, we have worked within the guidelines of the New Hampshire Public Employee Labor Relations Board to ensure a full and fair election process,” she says. “We will remain in status quo with our graduate workers on assistantships, including teaching assistants and graduate research assistantships, until a collective bargaining agreement is ratified between the parties. We remain happy and committed to working with this new union representing Durham graduate students on assistantships.”

Staying the Course
At Dartmouth, Peck says the union is determined to begin bargaining as soon as possible. He says inequities exist between college athletes and colleges that earn billions of dollars. This has made him rethink the definition of an “amateur athlete.”

“The amateur model has gone away. Kids are signing over their rights to ESPN and people are making a lot of money off them. If you’d asked me a few years ago whether we could organize a team I’d have said no. Today, it’s different. We’re just asking for basic human rights,” he says.

Dinsmore, George and Siebert all agree they are committed to the union and not just for themselves. None of the three graduate student workers will likely reap the benefits of a contract.  “I certainly reap a lot of personal benefits when it comes to community building and looking out for my fellow worker,” says Dinsmore, adding he will likely finish his time at UNH before a contract is settled. “I would say the majority of people who have been involved in this effort will not be seeing the benefits. I don’t believe Steph will unless she pursues a PhD here. For most of us, that’s not what it’s about. It’s about making sure things are better for the next generation of grad students.”

While a date hasn’t been set for contract negotiations to begin, Siebert says the union could start as early as late summer or early fall. “So far things have gone smooth,” he says. “The administration has been cooperative.”