Our Campaign

Key Issues

GSU’s current platform is based on a grad student survey that was circulated in the Summer of 2022 and includes the following demands:

  1. A living wage, always
  2. Guaranteed dental, vision, and comprehensive benefits
  3. Equitable policies for labs, classrooms, and community
  4. Fairness and support for international students
  5. Transparent budget and power in decision-making

We keep these key issues at the forefront when we’re building our campaigns and deciding what to focus on. Recognition would give us the ability to take on these issues by negotiating improvements as part of our contract. 

Recognition and Bargaining a Contract

We believe that a formally recognized union that bargains with our employer for a legally binding contract is the best way to improve our workplaces and graduate education at the University of Chicago overall. For this reason, we have been campaigning toward legal recognition since 2016. While we won a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) vote in October 2017, we were forced to withdraw our petition for certification from the NLRB due to Trump appointees who were hostile to labor. The University has since refused to do their duty and voluntarily recognize and bargain with us. We continue to campaign for recognition and are exploring our options for national affiliation and a new recognition strategy under a friendlier Biden-appointed NLRB. 

Eliminating the Student Services Fee

In the meantime, we have been organizing without the legal protections of recognition and a contract to achieve immediate material wins for graduate workers. In 2021, we kicked off a campaign to pressure UChicago to eliminate the Student Services Fee (SSF) throughout the COVID-19 pandemic due to the diminished accessibility of on-campus services and dire financial situations faced by our members. We also demanded increased transparency about the collection and uses of the SSF. As part of this campaign, hundreds of graduate workers collectively withheld payment of their fees, accruing over $100,000 in debt owed to the University. A year into this campaign, we updated our demands to call for the elimination of the SSF altogether. We had a major victory in January 2022, with administrators announcing that, beginning in Autumn 2022, the SSF would be covered as part of funding packages for all PhD students. We continue to organize around our other demands in this campaign. 

Archival Documents about our Campaign

Bargaining Survey

2018 survey conducted to learn about the needs of graduate students.

NLRB hearing Transcripts

Official Report of Proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 13, Chicago, IL, May 18 to May 26 and May 30 to June 1.

Campaign from Students and Alumni

Alumni and current students distributed a petition in support of Graduate Students United, which recognized both the labor performed by graduate teaching and research assistants as well as called on the University to halt its legal challenges and recognize GSU.