In another successful grad student unionization effort, Graduate Organized Laborers of Dartmouth (affiliated with the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America–commonly known as the UE Union), won its union yesterday by a dominant margin. According to the union and despite substantial efforts to disenfranchise graduate students throughout the process, 89% of those who voted were in favor of unionization.
According to the union's website, GOLD began as an idea in September 2021 and seriously began its card-collection campaign in October 2022. On its first day organizing graduate workers at the campus, over 400 people signed cards–close to half of the approximately 900 graduate workers the union is to soon represent–speaking to how serious the issues are at Dartmouth for graduate students. While graduate worker stipends at Dartmouth are approximately $35,000/year–akin to about a $17/hr wage assuming full time employment–median rent alone in Hanover, New Hampshire ($1,300/mo) immediately consumes close to half of this. Worse, it is not unusual for graduate workers to work as many as 80 hours a week. Graduate workers also have very few benefits–no childcare coverage, limited healthcare (including no dental coverage at all), and no retirement plan. Put another way: graduate workers are on the hook for the vast majority of their life expenses.
GOLD eventually reported collecting over 600 cards, a supermajority among the bargaining unit, during the organization process. Accordingly–and probably assuming Dartmouth University would see the writing on the wall and capitulate–members asked for voluntary recognition of the union. This did not happen. Dartmouth categorically refused to recognize the union and, in a fairly brazen attempt to union bust, challenged the eligibility of more than half of the union's voters on the grounds that they were not "employees" by virtue of being Fellows of the university. The NLRB rejected this challenging as ridiculous; nonetheless, Dartmouth stated it would challenge the ballots it considered ineligible anyways! Subsequent checking by members of the union found that even by Dartmouth's standards, their challenges were nonsensical, "includ[ing] 150 fellows as eligible voters and excluded 60 non-fellows for no apparent reason."
All of this from the university has of course been for naught. The union has been given an overwhelming mandate, and any unionization snafus Dartmouth was attempting to create in having large numbers of Fellows vote were rendered meaningless by a coordinated union boycott of the polls. Still, this was a glaring act of union busting and disenfranchisement, and it bodes ominously for what the university will do when it's forced to collectively bargain with the new union. I have confidence however that with a union victory at their back, GOLD will be able to fight back against whatever bullshit Dartmouth throws at it.