Last week, Stanford University became one of the latest universities to see a graduate worker union sprout, as Stanford Graduate Workers Union (affiliated with the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America–commonly known as the UE Union) announced its intent to unionize the approximately 5,000 graduate workers on campus.
One week later, the union reports that over 3,300 of the 5,000 workers who would be covered by the union have signed cards supporting it--a near supermajority and strong indicator that Stanford will soon join the wave of universities with graduate worker unions.
The union is seeking five key demands from the university, which are:
1. Affordable living conditions for all graduate workers.
2. Comprehensive benefits for all graduate workers and their dependents.
3. Safe and healthy workplaces free of power abuse, harassment, and discrimination.
4. Improved support for international and immigrant graduate workers.
5. Democratic decision-making power and transparency.
An election date is to be determined, pending the completion of the card-collecting drive and the union filing said cards–however, I cannot imagine that election will have suspense based on the support the union already has.