For those of you from out of state, it’s pronounced ‘wiss-tah’ and it’s a great city that has seen better times. Having said that, I still don’t think graduate students should be forming unions. It’s not a career.
The Worcester Business Journal reports:
Clark University graduate students to unionizeGraduate student workers at Clark University in Worcester formally requested union recognition in a letter to the college administration on Wednesday.The group is prepared to file for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board if Clark does not voluntarily recognize the union and begin bargaining, according to the letter which was signed by a 17-student organizing committee.A supermajority of graduate student workers in Clark’s Graduate Arts and Sciences and International Development, Community, and Environment programs have signed union authorization cards.Clark University said it was still looking into the issue when asked for a comment Thursday morning.The group would be represented by the Worcester-based Teamsters Union Local 170, which is the fifth-largest union by membership in Central Massachusetts, according to WBJ’s Book of Lists.“This is a historically significant moment for graduate labor,” the letter said, referring to graduate students at Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, UMass Amherst and Tufts University, who have made efforts to unionize in the last two years.Clark University Graduate Workers United began organizing in the spring of 2020 amid a healthcare premium hike, and ultimately gained subsidies for half of graduate workers’ healthcare costs that year, according to a Google Document published by the group.
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