Graduate workers at Stanford have united to collectively warn the University that their stalling at the bargaining table with the Stanford Graduate Workers Union (SGWU) cannot go on any longer. If Stanford does not meet our demands, all of the research, teaching and other work that graduate workers do may soon come to a screeching halt.

For over a year, we have been diligently negotiating with Stanford. Through bargaining and rank-and-file organizing, we have pushed Stanford to provide a great number of changes and concessions. We’ve secured a grievance procedure with independent arbitration, protections against arbitrary firing, workplace gender and disability accommodations, workplace safety, support for international workers and a host of wins around appointments.

So why have we, along with our fellow graduate workers, pledged to strike? Because Stanford has made no real commitments on four essential issues: a living wage that can keep up with Stanford’s high rent increases; better medical, transportation, family and international worker benefit; real and timely recourse for all graduate workers who experience harassment, discrimination, power abuse or bullying; and an enforceable funding guarantee.

We are proud to sign this strike pledge, because we know graduate workers cannot accept a contract that lacks these four critical demands.

A living wage

As graduate workers, we provide critical labor to Stanford University and deserve a living wage. We live in one of the most expensive counties in the country. No matter which local cost-of-living metric we look at, Stanford does not pay us wages that would afford us a decent standard of living. 

Stanford may tout their so-called subsidized housing, but we know from our lived experience that Stanford’s “below-market-rate” is egregiously high. The numbers don’t lie: Compared to our current salary, our housing rates are well over the Federal HUD and California definition of affordable housing, which is equivalent to 30% of income. 

Having refused to bargain with graduate workers over rent, Stanford must at minimum increase wages so that we can afford to live on this campus at the rental rates that they set. Every quarter, we spend large portions of our salaries paying the university back. Our contract must also adjust for rent increases so that Stanford does not simply recoup our wage increases through rent hikes. 

We need fair wages because we need real equity on this campus. Stanford needs to be affordable for all graduate workers, regardless of citizenship status, class background, medical needs, care responsibilities or unexpected events. Graduate workers are the future of academia; barriers to diversity at the graduate level only serve to thwart diversity in the academy and bar top talent from entering the field.

We are signing the strike pledge to demand that Stanford provide a substantial increase in the minimum salary and a significant wage increase for graduate workers already making above the minimum. Graduate workers must be able to live with dignity on this campus. 

Improved benefits

Graduate workers need improved medical, transportation and family benefits, as well as support for international graduate workers. Our current healthcare coverage has glaring omissions — notably, full dental and vision coverage as well as long-term mental health care — that prevent graduate workers from having our basic needs met. Proper dental care and eyeglasses are not luxuries; they are baseline requirements for living. Graduate workers cannot simply depend on Stanford’s current system of short-term mental health solutions. We require long-term coverage.

On the transportation front: the University previously offered the Caltrain GoPass to off-campus graduate workers, but they canceled the program in 2022. They never offered the GoPass to on-campus workers. Yet providing the GoPass to all graduate workers is vital to reducing car reliance for medical appointments, airport travel and weekend outings.

International graduate workers in particular face significant additional costs simply because of their citizenship status. These manifest in the form of visa fees, high travel expenses, lack of access to government services and inability for spouses to work. Given the significant percentage of international graduate workers on campus, we demand that Stanford reimburse visa fees or provide a monetary equivalent. 

Many workers are finishing their degrees up in their late 20s or early 30s, a time when many people are considering having a family or already have dependents. Child care in the Bay Area is exorbitantly expensive, yet Stanford provides minimal support to workers with dependents. Workers with families need economic benefits to offset the overwhelming costs of their dependent care and healthcare. Stanford needs to do more to ensure the health and well being of these workers as well as their loved ones. 

We are signing the strike pledge to demand that Stanford acknowledge that we are workers by providing many of the same benefits that they already provide faculty and staff.

Real recourse

Graduate workers need protections against harassment, discrimination and power abuse. Harassment and discrimination are unconscionably pervasive across campus, yet cases of misconduct are widely unreported. Workers repeatedly express they do not have confidence in Stanford’s ability to provide support and recourse to those who have experienced harassment and discrimination. 

After nearly a year of negotiating at the table and graduate workers raising awareness on this issue, Stanford has finally allowed some cases of discrimination and harassment to be processed through the union’s grievance procedure. However, the University continues to refuse to allow gender-based discrimination, harassment, power abuse and bullying to be fully grievable in a timely manner. Stanford additionally refuses to extend union protections to fellows, relegating important members of our community to a second-class status under which they would be unable to seek recourse through SGWU Finally, they have refused to allow cases of power abuse and bullying to be grievable at all — an issue that has touched almost every graduate worker on campus.

As with fair wages, real recourse will increase equity on campus by increasing protections for marginalized and underrepresented groups at Stanford. Women and gender non-conforming workers are far more likely to experience sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination. Additionally, graduate workers of color are far more likely to experience discriminatory behavior than their white colleagues. These incidents of harassment and discrimination have detrimental impacts on our workers’ productivity and livelihood. Marginalized groups bear the brunt of this. We need protections to ensure that all graduate workers are guaranteed a safe working environment. 

We are signing the strike pledge to demand that Stanford provide real and timely recourse to graduate workers who experience harassment, power abuse and discrimination at Stanford. 

Enforceable funding guarantee

Graduate school is a long and arduous process. Stanford claims it provides a five-year funding commitment to all Ph.D. graduate workers to ensure financial stability. If you’re like most graduate workers, however, you probably know someone whose access to funding has been far from “guaranteed.” While the University continues to claim that we should take its word at face value and believe its commitment, multiple graduate workers’ experiences show how fickle and weak this commitment currently is. We at SGWU believe that a funding guarantee, as to be enshrined in the contract, is a right of every graduate worker at Stanford.

In bargaining sessions, Stanford has continuously claimed that guaranteed funding is an academic, rather than a labor, issue and that they are not required to bargain on it. By introducing this confusing distinction, they want to deny a contract that ensures greater security and equity for graduate workers. We are not asking Stanford to do something unprecedented. Multiple unions across the United States have won funding guarantees in their contracts. For instance, graduate unions at Dartmouth and Johns Hopkins enshrined five-year funding guarantees in their recent contract negotiations. We urge Stanford to follow the example set by other peer institutions and our sibling unions.

We are signing the strike pledge because having an enforceable funding guarantee within the contract is a win for both graduate workers and Stanford. By having some enforceable measures, the union can help ensure that no graduate worker is left behind.

After a year of bargaining, graduate workers have had enough of Stanford’s broken promises and lip-service to higher values, while they continually refuse to give us the protections, benefits and wages we deserve. Stanford has made it clear that they won’t give this to us willingly; we must stand together and collectively demand it. Stanford works because we do. It’s time to remind them of that! 

Sign the strike pledge here!

Got questions? Check out our Strike FAQ (short and long). Want to get more involved? Contact your lead department organizers or bargaining committee representatives.

Rachel Broun is a second-year Ph.D. student in anthropology. Sofia Di Toro Wyetzner is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in computer science and a member of the SGWU Bargaining Committee. Allie Cemalovic is a second-year Ph.D. student in civil engineering. Alexa Russo is a seventh-year Ph.D. student in anthropology and a member of the SGWU Bargaining Committee. All are members of the Stanford Graduate Workers Union.

The post From the Community | Why we are signing the strike pledge appeared first on The Stanford Daily.