Council members and unionizers are still unsure what role that Council will have if strikes resume in September.
(Devan Ridgway, WFIU/WTIU)
A new council of faculty and graduate students at the College of Arts and Sciences will recommend policy changes to address the needs of student academic appointees (SAAs or graduate workers). The College’s provisional SAA Council met for the first time last Wednesday.
The council was created in response to an ongoing conflict about working conditions for graduate students. Graduate student workers at IU have been organizing since Fall 2019, protesting stipends and compensations. Workers held a strike in the spring and are expected to resume striking in September.
Council co-chair and IU History Professor Padraic Kenney believes that the council adds necessary representation to College governance. That means having an advisory council co-chaired by and composed mostly of graduate workers.
“We felt it was necessary to create this council, whatever happens with the strike,” Kenney said. “When I was looking for people to nominate themselves or be nominated to be members of the council, I said explicitly that membership in the union is neither a positive nor negative criterion.”
The IU trustee decision not to recognize the graduate worker union frustrated graduate students fighting for change. The administration’s response, including a working group with only one graduate student representative, has been criticized by union advocates as one-sided.
Unlike the provost’s working group, the College Council is meant to change policy within the College. Kenney sees the Council as another avenue for dialogue with graduate workers, rather than an alternative to unionization.
“The circumstances of it arising are irrevocably connected to the strike that has happened and the strike that may well happen. But there’s no question that it’s a necessary and important development,” Kenney said. “There’s no question in my mind that this council will continue, and I hope also that it will acquire a more and more formal role within the college.”
Still, some student workers involved in the strike doubt the value of the Council. At the start of the meeting, graduate student councilmember Quan Le Thien Minh read a prepared statement which said, “the fact that this committee was put together without any election and that members were chosen secretly behind closed door by the office of Executive Dean in COAS point to a clear problem of legitimacy and legality in terms of democratic representation in this committee.”
IU Graduate Workers Coalition member Katie Shy says that a graduate council within the College isn’t helpful while the union is still campaigning for recognition.
“I think that the faculty co-chair is definitely serving and speaking in good faith, but the union already exists and we’re here to fulfil this function as soon as the administration is ready to speak with us,” Shy said.
Shy also believes that the Council fails to represent student worker interests because members are nominated or self-nominated. Shy also noted that the Council lacks authority to institute policy changes.
“Not only is it not representative, but it’s simple advisory. That’s not what graduate workers are striking for, that’s not what we’re organizing for, that’s not going to create change on campus,” Shy said.
If the strike resumes in September, Kenney said the Council’s role largely depends on the input of its student members. Kenney said that some members have close relationships to the union effort, although the council is still waiting for student workers to nominate their co-chair.
