{"id":9634,"date":"2023-03-14T01:11:35","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T05:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=9634"},"modified":"2023-03-23T01:25:04","modified_gmt":"2023-03-23T05:25:04","slug":"princeton-graduate-workers-are-fighting-like-tigers-for-a-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2023\/03\/princeton-graduate-workers-are-fighting-like-tigers-for-a-union\/","title":{"rendered":"Princeton graduate workers are fighting like tigers for a union"},"content":{"rendered":"

L<\/span>ast month Princeton Graduate Students United (PGSU), affiliated with the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), publicly declared a union card campaign. Princeton is one of the last remaining Ivy League universities to announce a unionization drive. Student workers gathered on February 15 to call for the union to be formally recognized as the bargaining representative of graduate workers on campus. On just the first day, over a thousand graduate workers at Princeton\u2014around a third of the total graduate worker population and the legal minimum needed to call for a union election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)\u2014have signed cards. And we have reached a majority of cards signed just a little more than a week after the campaign launched.<\/p>\n

PGSU\u2019s card drop campaign emerged from many years of campus organizing, going back to the spring of 2016. Spurred by a collective solidarity effort across universities to file an amicus brief to urge the NLRB to recognize<\/a> Columbia\u2019s graduate student workers\u2019 right to collectively bargain, Princeton graduate student workers first began meeting in the spring of 2016 to discuss unionization. In the fall, PGSU affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) to begin an organizing committee (later disaffiliated in 2018).<\/p>\n

When Trump\u2019s presidency began, AFT\u2019s graduate worker campaigns scaled back from actively organizing for a card campaign. During this time, PGSU focused on other activities, participating in numerous campaigns with other student and worker organizations demanding change on and off campus. PGSU organizers called for better accountability for cases of sexual misconduct through campaigns<\/a> to reform the university\u2019s Title XI policies, and collaborated with Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) and Service Employers Industrial Union (SEIU) on their labor solidarity work with other campus workers. Off-campus, PGSU organizers supported Yale graduate student workers\u2019 unionization campaign and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients at Rutgers who were facing the threat of deportation in 2017.<\/p>\n

In May of 2021, PGSU voted to affiliate with UE, which spurred a renewed effort in actively organizing toward a card drop campaign. This energy coincides with the upsurge<\/a> of graduate student unionization all throughout the country. Princeton\u2019s organizing drive comes on the heels of tremendous victories in other UE-affiliated graduate student unionization efforts. Earlier this year, graduate student workers at Northwestern and Johns Hopkins won their unions by an overwhelming margin\u2014more than 93 and 97 percent respectively.<\/p>\n

Princeton prides itself on promoting high standards for its employees, but the reality is labor issues that are prevalent across the industry still persist in our institution, from a broken workers\u2019 grievance process to negligence for workers\u2019 basic needs and accommodations. In particular, the pandemic has exposed the university\u2019s negligence in protecting students\u2019 and workers\u2019 health on campus. In 2020, PGSU organized a petition<\/a> with a series of recommendations for COVID-19 precautions, signed by hundreds of graduate student workers\u2014only for the university to respond to a few of the demands. With the advent of the Omicron variant last winter, other peer institutions delayed their spring semester start dates. But Princeton refused to follow suit\u2014without even providing remote learning options for those in need\u2014against the joint advocacy<\/a> of PGSU and Princeton Disability Collective.<\/p>\n