Frequently Asked Questions

The Coalition of Graduate Employees (CGE) is a group of graduate student employees at Penn State. Our goal is to improve our working conditions and increase our power as employees by forming a union and collectively bargaining with Penn State management. Some of the issues we seek to improve include low pay and stipends, lack of job security, unreasonable workloads, and security for international student workers. We are fighting for a democratic voice in the workplace and adequate protections for all graduate workers. By forming a union of graduate student workers, together we can build a powerful, unified voice and win improvements for all grad workers at Penn State!

Forming a union with the United Auto Workers (UAW) in particular means joining tens of thousands of researchers and other higher education employees who are already UAW members. Other academic workers organized with UAW include graduate workers at the University of California, University of Connecticut, University of Washington, University of Massachusetts, and many more!

We are graduate student workers employed by Penn State in teaching or research positions. This includes any graduate student working as a Teaching Assistant, Research Assistant, Graduate Assistant, Trainee, and other job titles held by graduate student instructional or research employees.

A union is a group of workers who come together to improve their workplace through the power of collective action. Unions are democratic organizations that are made by, of, and for the group of employees they represent (in our case, Penn State graduate student workers). By advocating for positive changes and solidifying those improvements in an enforceable collective bargaining agreement, workers can leverage more power together through their union than a single worker alone ever could.

Collective bargaining is the process by which a union of employees and their employer negotiate a contract that establishes standard workplace conditions and benefits, such as salary, insurance, job security, and other workplace protections. Both parties in collective bargaining—in this case, our graduate student union and the Penn State administration—are required to negotiate in good faith. Through collective bargaining, Penn State graduate student workers would have the right to bargain with management as equals over our working conditions.

Through collective bargaining, thousands of academic employees have successfully negotiated improvements in their wages, benefits, job security, leaves, protections against harassment and discrimination, and many other terms and conditions of their employment. Without collective bargaining, Penn State has unilateral power to change our working conditions. Without collective bargaining, we cannot negotiate as equals over stipends, health insurance, a fair grievance procedure for addressing harassment and discrimination or other issues.

Yes! In 2018, the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board determined that graduate workers at Penn State are employees, despite the university’s claims to the contrary, and thus have the legal right to form a union.

To name just a few gains, graduate workers at other universities have successfully negotiated: higher wages; better benefits; protections from harassment, discrimination, and abusive conduct; protections from unfair termination; greater support for dependent children; greater support for international employees; and more transparent workplace policies. Critically, these improvements are part of a legally binding contract, which makes them enforceable.

Forming a union is one of the most important things we can do to ensure that all international graduate students are successful at Penn State. International students can face multiple unique challenges: misinformation and uncertainty about rules and regulations, discriminatory policies, and funding insecurity. By unionizing, we will be able to bargain for improvements that become part of an enforceable contract, including SEVIS fee waivers, paid leave for immigration hearings, tax support, and protections from ICE or CBP presence on campus.

1. Build Support: Penn State graduate student workers form a representative organizing committee including grad workers across all departments, gather information, build broad support, and make a plan to form a union. 
2. Sign in Support: A majority of all Penn State graduate student workers sign authorization cards indicating we would like to form a union as CGE–UAW.
3. Seek Recognition: Penn State graduate student workers ask for voluntary recognition from Penn State management once a large majority of workers have signed in support. If management refuses recognition of our union, we will deliver our authorization cards to the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board (PLRB) which oversees public sector employee unionization efforts in the state of Pennsylvania. The PLRB requests a list of employees from Penn State to verify that 30% or more of eligible workers have signed.
4. Vote in Our Union Election: If the PLRB finds that 30% or more of all eligible workers have signed cards, then a union election is scheduled. Our union will be certified if a majority of all voting workers vote in favor of forming a union. Participation is crucial: the more graduate student workers who vote “yes” to form the union, the more participation and power we’ll have going into bargaining with the university.
5. We Win Our Election: Our union is certified and Penn State management must come to the bargaining table to negotiate with Penn State graduate student workers!
6. Elect a Bargaining Committee: Graduate student workers elect a bargaining committee of our peers to represent all Penn State grad workers in collective bargaining with Penn State management.
7. Bargaining Priorities Survey: Graduate student workers fill out comprehensive bargaining surveys, hold discussions, and gather feedback to draft our initial bargaining demands.
8. Bargaining Demands Ratified: Initial bargaining demands are sent to all graduate student workers for review, and workers vote on whether or not to approve them.
9. Contract Negotiations: The CGE-UAW bargaining committee negotiates as equals with Penn State administration and provides regular updates to all graduate student workers.
10. Collective Action: If the Penn State management does not bargain in good faith and make reasonable proposals, we have the legally protected right to take action together to pressure management to meet the needs of grad workers. If absolutely necessary, we have the right to strike in order to pressure the university to bargain in good faith.
11. Contract Ratification: Once a tentative agreement is reached at the bargaining table, all Penn State graduate student workers vote on whether or not to ratify the agreement. If the contract is not approved, we go back to negotiating. A majority of voting workers must vote “yes” in order for the contract to be approved.

It is illegal for employers to discourage unionization or punish workers who support it. In fact, having a union will provide us as graduate workers with additional resources to address grievances, discrimination, and other issues with the university.

Under US law, graduate student employees at Penn State are employees regardless of citizenship status. This means we have the legal right to form unions and bargain with the University as equals. Additionally, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is legally prohibited from asking you questions about your union membership and activity.

Student employees have formed unions and bargained contracts at many schools, and student employee unions have existed for over 50 years. In fact, tens of thousands of international students are already members of graduate student worker unions at the University of California, the University of Washington, and Harvard University, among others. No unionized academic employee has ever reported any complications arising from being both an international student and a unionized employee.

As graduate student workers, we may decide to go on strike if Penn State management acts in bad faith or refuses to agree to a fair contract. Effective strikes require broad participation and support, and are generally planned well in advance. Since we are joining UAW, a strike must be authorized by at least a two-thirds vote of CGE-UAW supporters. If we were to strike, striking Penn State grad workers would be eligible for weekly strike pay during the duration of any strike, which would help support our efforts to take collective action to pressure university management.

Many union contracts have been successfully negotiated without resorting to a strike. For example, UC Postdocs and UC Academic Researchers both negotiated strong contracts in 2016 and 2019 respectively without striking, but were prepared to strike if necessary.

In other cases, student employees have chosen to go on strike in response to stalled contract negotiations or their employer acting in bad faith. In April 2018, Columbia student workers voted to go on strike when the university illegally refused to bargain with their union, and voted again to go on strike in March 2021 for a fair contract. In December 2019, 90.4% of Harvard graduate student workers voted to authorize a strike, and then went on strike for recognition from the university. In Spring 2021, 96% of graduate student workers at NYU voted to go on strike for a fair contract.

Once our union is formed, Penn State management cannot unilaterally alter any terms and conditions of employment—including pay and benefits. For example, university management could not reduce our health care benefits after we file for a union unless graduate student workers agree to such a reduction. This is one of many ways that Pennsylvania law requires public employers, like Penn, to bargain in good faith.

Instead, changes to terms and conditions of employment are subject to collective bargaining, through which we, as unionized graduate student workers, will have the power to negotiate with Penn administrators as equals and democratically approve an enforceable contract.

It is very unlikely that any grad workers’ stipends in particular departments or colleges will decrease as a result of securing a union contract. First, Penn State graduate workers would be unlikely to vote in favor of a contract that lowers salaries or negatively impacts us in any way. Some workers might not experience as much of a raise as others, but generally graduate workers want to see increased pay and more pay equity and transparency across the university. Second, many grad worker unions have negotiated contracts in recent years, and none has resulted in any workers receiving lower wages. For example: UC grad workers negotiated 25-80% wage increases in 2022; USC grad workers negotiated 19% wage increases; and Yale grad workers negotiated 30% wage increases. 

As a union, we will be negotiating with the Penn administration, not with our advisors, PIs, and supervisors, because it is the policies of the university that define the conditions of our employment. We should not expect that our day-to-day interaction with faculty supervisors will change significantly, except that we will have more transparency in expectations and enforceable protections should something go awry.

If you have a good relationship with your advisor, then that’s fantastic—there is no reason for a union contract to change anything! However, for those graduate workers experiencing an unsafe environment, having a union contract provides what’s called a grievance process. This is an avenue, separate from the department or the university itself, by which the worker can file a formal complaint, enforce their contractual rights, and receive resolution.

Research has shown that when student employees unionize, the relationship between advisors and students is not negatively impacted. In fact, it may lead to more positive relationships because a union contract can clarify policies around wages, vacation, sick days, holidays, etc.

We as graduate workers ARE the union! All Penn State graduate workers will have the opportunity to be involved in shaping the priorities of our union, running for elected union office, participating in organizing, and many other avenues for participation. Elected graduate student union representatives (i.e. graduate workers who volunteer their time) will negotiate directly with university management with the input of the broader population of graduate workers. Unions are democratic groups of organized workers, not outside groups that impose changes without input or involvement from workers.

We, as graduate student workers, will democratically decide on the terms of employment that most benefit our ability to perform teaching and research at a high level. Recent contracts negotiated by other UAW academic unions have emphasized protections against excessive workload that nonetheless retain flexibility. For example, the contract for Graduate Teaching and Research Assistants at the University of Washington protects against excessive workload by setting an hourly limit to the amount of work that may be assigned, but allows work assignments for Research Assistants to exceed their hourly limit if that work contributes to their dissertation project. UC Postdocs chose not to bargain for an hourly limit to their workload. Instead, the contract for Postdocs at UC protects against excessive, unnecessary workload by stating “work schedules must be reasonable, and related to research needs.”

It will be up to us to democratically decide what will work at Penn State, fully taking into consideration the many contexts in which we all work. A collective bargaining agreement can include workload protections that set a ceiling on the maximum amount of hours students are permitted to work by their PI. If a graduate worker thought they were being overworked and needed help resolving the issue, they could file a grievance to ensure fair treatment and compensation for their hard work. It will be up to Penn State graduate student workers to decide together what will make the most sense for us.

We only pay dues once we have gone through the bargaining process and voted democratically to approve our first contract. Dues are a small percentage of union members’ pre-tax income. UAW membership dues are currently 1.44% of gross monthly income and can only be increased by membership action (the membership in a few local unions, for example, have voted to increase dues above 1.44% to have more resources). Membership dues are important because they provide the resources necessary for effective representation. Dues are critical for providing us with independent resources that are not controlled by the university: we use them to ensure we have appropriate legal, bargaining, community and staff support to represent all Penn State graduate student workers. Additionally, unionized workers at other universities have actually seen stipends increase well above the amount of dues members pay! For example, for the 2021-22 academic year, graduate student workers at Columbia won a minimum of a 6% increase for an after-dues minimum 12-month salary of $43,100, plus guaranteed salary increases in subsequent years.

The Graduate and Professional Student Association (GPSA) does fantastic work advocating for graduate students! However, it only makes recommendations to the university, which Penn State can choose to act on or ignore. A union would legally obligate the university to give us a democratic voice and to directly negotiate with graduate student workers over our contracts. What’s more, these negotiations would create contracts that are enforceable. (If you are part of GPSA or another advocacy organization on campus and would like to collaborate with CGE or discuss what a union means further, please contact us!)

We are receiving support, advice, and structure from UAW as an experienced partner in our unionization effort. Though UAW has historically organized industrial workers, over the past several decades it has expanded to sectors like healthcare and higher education. UAW has helped organize graduate workers in the University of California system, Columbia University, the University of Connecticut, the University of Washington, and many more! Over 100,000 academic workers are unionized as part of the UAW.

Penn State graduate workers successfully organized an authorization card drive in 2017, but the union vote failed in April 2018. Penn State administration tried to stall proceedings by arguing that graduate workers are not employees, but the PLRB ruled that we are employees and can therefore vote on whether to form a union. In short, we do have the right to unionize—and this time around, we are better equipped to win our vote. We have seen Penn State’s playbook from 2018, and are aware of the scare tactics it used to spread misinformation and confusion about unions. That’s why CGE has been working since 2020 to better inform graduate workers of our rights and share basic facts about how a union can improve our lives.