The Graduate Student Employee Union has created a petition to continue pushing SUNY for improved working conditions.

Graduate student employees, including many teaching assistants and graduate assistants, have long struggled for greater recognition and wage equality — with Ph.D. students receiving stipends as low as $21,000 and master’s students, about $10,600, which are often offset by student fees and living costs, according to union leaders. By comparison, other employees in the education field make an annual salary upward of $50,000, depending on position.

Camille Gagnier, the president of BU’s GSEU chapter and a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Translation Research and Instruction Program, described a tendency to “not treat graduate students workers as workers” when emphasizing the role graduate workers play in the educational system — when tenured professors demand more for their teaching, graduate student workers can be forced to fill in the gaps.

“A huge proportion of the work that makes institutions like BU able to function is performed by graduate students,” Gagnier said. “And that is even more and more true over the years because as a cost-cutting measure, administrations tend to reallocate work that used to be done by tenured professors who demand higher pay. They’re moving that work and giving it instead to more precarious workers who have less power to demand fair pay.”

In response, the GSEU has created a new petition, directed toward SUNY Chancellor John B. King Jr, to push for good-faith negotiation on various health and safety proposals, antidiscrimination protections and a prohibition on nondisclosure agreements for sexual harassment and violence. Leaders of union chapters across SUNY campuses met to plan for the bargaining session, which led to the creation of the petition, co-drafted by representatives.

“Our old contract was dropped in the context of pre-pandemic 2019, pre-the latest wave of recession, inflation, economic crunchtime,” said Renée Szematowicz, the chief steward of BU’s GSEU and a Ph.D. student in the history department. “That contract is still theoretically enforced. So, your teaching assistants and graduate assistants on this campus are still getting paid those 2019 conditions under that contract. However, the state doesn’t seem to have any sort of enthusiasm or incentive to get a new contract.”

The BU chapter of the GSEU has previously pressured the University to raise wages through protests. 

In response to previous campaigns, BU agreed to pay doctoral employees a minimum of $21,000 a year. Gagnier said this increase is not contractually guaranteed, but only ensured as long as it is in the University’s best interest.

Recent negotiations to create a more expansive contract have brought little progress, union representatives said. Gagnier and other GSEU members said negotiations with SUNY are symbolic of a systemic issue.

“They’re trying to roll back,” said Viktorya Erdogu, a Ph.D. student in the political science department. “We’re proposing some articles, some language, that will include and will be more inclusive. They’re just trying to roll back to the previous contract, they’re just refusing articles. So, you know, it kind of shows that the New York state and SUNY system is not really interested in protecting our labor rights.”

During the bargaining process, GSEU sent SUNY representatives written proposals with proposed changes to the old contract. Gagnier said the representatives would ask for clarification before deciding which proposals to accept and which changes to push back against.

Both the University and SUNY did not specifically comment on the ongoing negotiations. Ryan Yarosh ‘02, MPA ‘09, the University’s senior director of media and public relations, said BU “recognizes the important contributions our graduate students make to campus.”

“While we do not comment on ongoing negotiations, we are committed to a fair contract that recognizes the important contributions of SUNY’s graduate students who work on campus,” a SUNY spokesperson said.

Szematowicz described how students can help the GSEU in their efforts.

“[Signing] the petition is the big one,” Szematowicz said.“I think also just awareness of the working conditions of the people who are teaching them. If you’re being taught by an adjunct, if you’re being taught by a graduate student teaching assistant, our working conditions are pretty bleak. The thing, though, is [to] understand that directly translates to your education conditions, like your ability to have a class where your instructors are able to give you decent mentorship and decent guidance about how to teach you. When our working conditions improve, undergraduate students’ learning conditions improve, and that’s a big thing that students should be aware of.” 

Editor’s Note (11/26): Edits were made to clarify the demands of the GSEU’s petition, to specify the goals of their campaign and the academic standing of the local chapter’s president.