The Research Assistants Union and the Graduate Student Employee Union held a rally to fight for fair wages from the State University of New York administration.

The rally was held on the Peace Quad on Friday, Sept. 18, in front of the Couper Administration Building. Multiple leaders within both organizations shared how graduate student employees and research assistants are integral to Binghamton University’s campus.

“We’re underpaid,” said Viktorya Erdoğu, GSEU President and fourth-year PhD student studying political science. “We’re employees of New York State, and we’re not being paid livable wage. We all know how difficult the economic situation is right now, but the main purpose of this protest is to advocate for livable wage for all graduate workers, particularly for research assistants.”

The Research Assistant’s Union represents graduate student research assistants within the SUNY system. The Union negotiates contracts for research assistants every three years with the aim of raising wages, improving health insurance and ensuring better working conditions.

The goals of the union also include increased protections for international students.

“The majority of these workers are international students conducting scientific research, prime targets for President Trump’s mass deportation and research defunding schemes,” the CWA stated on their website when the Binghamton union groups joined the parent company. “Despite the inherent danger of organizing and the added danger of incarceration or deportation, these brave workers courageously accepted those risks to help protect one another.”

Speakers spoke about the importance of RAs and graduate student workers in research at BU.

Erdoğu wrote to Pipe Dream that grad workers are the ones doing the “hands-on work” that powers BU’s research. From running experiments, collecting and analyzing data to co-authoring publications and training undergraduates, she says, their work supports Binghamton’s R1 status and various research programs.

“The University and the state promote this research as a driver of the Southern Tier economy, yet the people carrying it out are being offered less than they earn today,” Erdoğu wrote.

Binghamton University maintains an R1 prolific research status among top universities. The Carnegie Classification looks at schools’ research expenditures and graduate programs to evaluate which campuses can be considered an R1 institution.

The University spent a record amount of over $103.2 million on sponsored research during the 2025-2026 fiscal year.

According to Erdoğu, the Research Foundation’s most recent pay offer for RAs was $1,150 biweekly, which is $100 less than the amount RAs currently earn under BU’s updated stipend guidelines.

“Today’s message is loud and clear: RAs unanimously reject a regressive, low-balled, and quite frankly disingenuous salary proposal from the RF that doesn’t even begin to cover the costs of living for our region,” said Jordan, an RAU representative and PhD candidate at the rally.

In an interview with Pipe Dream, Erdoğu explained that most PhD contracts state that they are not allowed to have a secondary source of income.

Graduate assistants and teaching assistants of the GSEU are paid by the University, while RA’s are paid through the SUNY Research Foundation. Both are part of their parent union, Communications Workers of America.

“The issue we currently face at the bargaining table around livable wages is not a logistical matter of whether the RF can afford to pay us more — they most certainly can…What we’re facing with the RF is a matter of political will,” Jordan said. (1)