Below is a statement from Jess Issacharoff, a Duke University graduate worker and SEIU Faculty Forward member, on the National Labor Relations Board’s announcement that it will revisit the right of graduate workers – the master’s and PhD students who do much of the research, teaching and grading on campuses nationwide for extremely low pay – to form their unions:
“Since 2016, thousands of graduate workers at private sector colleges have won our unions, negotiated collective bargaining agreements with our university employers and made significant improvements to our pay and working conditions. We are disappointed in the Trump Labor Board’s willingness to call into question our labor rights and the progress we have made. As our movement has proven over and over, regardless of the limitations and injustices of our legal system, we will continue to demand a $15 an hour minimum wage and union rights. Continuing attacks on our rights as workers will only force us to escalate otherwise easily resolved issues to protests, occupations and strikes.”
