IU grad workers’ strike continues after faculty’s no confidence vote
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Friday marks the final day of a three-day strike by graduate workers at Indiana University in Bloomington, who are seeking union recognition, an increase in wages and benefits, and improved working conditions.
The strike began one day after the Bloomington Faculty Council at IU gave a vote of no confidence in three of the university’s top officials, including President Pamela Whitten.
Members of the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition (IGWC) have spent the past two days with picket signs marching on the Bloomington campus.
The coalition says the university has not responded to a letter sent to Whitten in January demanding the university pay graduate workers a living wage and also included a list of 1,300 members who have signed union cards. The letter also sought a meeting with IU representatives during the spring semester to begin planning a union election.
Specifically, the group is asking IU to meet the living wage minimum based on the MIT Living Wage Calculator for Bloomington, which amounts to nearly $28,000 for 10-month student academic appointees, or SAAs, and more than $33,500 for 12-month SAAs.
This week’s strike follows a similar strike in 2022, which led to IU eliminating many fees for graduate workers, as well as raising the minimum SAA stipends to $22,000.
Coalition members told the Herald-Times in Bloomington they want to form a union in order to ensure their wages keep up with cost-of-living expenses.
“We need a permanent seat at the bargaining table so we don’t have to do this every time,” Ivy Kline, a department organizer for the coalition, told the publication. “This is what we have to do, and we’ll do it until we get a living wage.”
In a statement emailed to Inside INdiana Business, IU spokesperson Mark Bode said the IU Board of Trustees has made it clear that efforts to enhance graduate education at the university are “best accomplished through existing channels of shared governance and collaboration.”
He said the Bloomington campus has made it a priority to address concerns put forth by IU’s SAAs since 2021.
“With multiple raises announced in the last two years, IUB has increased minimum stipends for SAAs by more than 50%, in addition to eliminating mandatory graduate student and course-specific fees,” Bode said. “The minimum stipend for SAAs in 2024-2025 will be $23,000 for a half-time/20-hour-a-week appointment plus health insurance and fee remission. Additionally, through the SAA Affairs Committee of the Bloomington Faculty Council, stipend rates will be benchmarked regularly to ensure minimum stipends remain in the top half of Big Ten peers. Even with these efforts, we continue to look for opportunities to best support graduate and undergraduate students on campus.”
On Tuesday, the Bloomington Faculty Council gave separate votes of no confidence for Whitten, Provost Rahul Shrivastav, and Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs Carrie Docherty.
The petition calling for the vote cited several recent controversial decisions made by the university’s administration, which it said was “encroaching on both academic freedom and shared governance.”
Among the decisions outlined in the petition was the cancellation of a planned exhibit showcasing the work of Palestinian artist—and Indiana University alumna—Samia Halaby at the IU Eskenazi Museum of Art, as well as a plan to split the Kinsey Institute into a not-for-profit, a move that was later abandoned by the university.
Each vote had nearly 900 votes cast, with 672 voting no confidence for Docherty, 804 voting no confidence for Shrivastav, and 827 voting no confidence for Whitten.
After the vote, Whitten responded in a letter to faculty.
“There is no going back to an earlier time. Demographic changes, resulting financial realities, and political developments are only accelerating. To combat the challenges that mark this new environment, I welcome thoughtful ideas and consideration,” she said. “Against this backdrop, our trustees have charged us with making difficult but necessary decisions to ensure that IU, and IU Bloomington, as the flagship, emerges as a leader among elite research universities.”
Whitten said she pledges to listen and learn, and she will “weigh the guidance from faculty council and the participation of the campus community through shared governance to achieve our collective vision of a thriving campus.”
Katharina Schmid-Schmidsfelden, an international student in the coalition, told the Herald-Times that the university’s lack of communication with the group goes against the pledge of shared governance.
“We’ve been trying for a long time to communicate with the administration,” she said. “To bring shared governance up now is a slap in our faces, honestly.”
The IU Board of Trustees also offered its full support for Whitten in a statement released after the vote.
“She is the right leader at the right time precisely because she has pursued a future for Indiana University that will ensure that it thrives in its next era,” the board said. “It is our intention that President Whitten’s tenure as the leader at IU will provide the many years necessary to realize the vision we have established for the university. We, the Board of Trustees, stand united in our confidence in President Whitten and the long-term success of IU.”
You can read more about the strike from the Herald-Times by clicking here.