(Photo courtesy of Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition)
IU graduate workers say they are being made to sign a new contract under duress. A petition circulated by the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition (IGWC) states that workers had to sign the contract as a condition of employment without the opportunity to negotiate as a union. Graduate student workers for fall must sign the contract by Aug. 3.
In previous years, graduate instructors have signed a Student Academic Appointee (SAA) agreement specifying terms of employment. The new contract adds requirements that faculty track graduate mentees more closely, monitor their hours and mandate use of a learning management system such as Canvas.
In a June 30 email to IU faculty and staff, provost Rahul Shrivastav wrote that new employment agreements for SAAs would “provide significantly greater clarity about workload expectations and responsibilities.” He also thanked deans, department chairs, and the Bloomington Faculty Council for their review and input.
Coalition member Katie Shy says the new stipulations are intended to punish striking students.
“What it really does is require our faculty to turn from being our academic mentors into being managers,” Shy said. “It is not meant to help us develop professionally or academically. Rather, it is meant to pave the way for retaliation against graduate workers.”
In an email, IU Director of Media Relations Chuck Carney said that the new contracts include policy language to enforce long-standing employment policies, but is otherwise “substantively indistinguishable from past contracts.” The new requirements for departments to track their students’ workloads are meant to ensure that graduate workloads are not excessive, infringing on their ability to succeed.
IU policy officially says that SAA supervising is a matter left to faculty and schools and isn’t managed on a campus level. Departments and schools were given the new contracts by the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs. The administration says that the changes to the contract were developed drawing on advice from the faculty.
“The campus told each school that they had to develop an SAA supervisory plan,” said Ben Robinson, president of the IU chapter of the American Association of University Professors. He objected that the vice provost’s office did not actually involve faculty in discussions, which he said is a violation of academic policy.
“It needs conversation, it needs development, it needs thought, and there was no process at all,” he said. “Not even chairs were invited – were told –anything about this. We pretty much got a premade SAA plan.”
The new contract requires faculty to monitor the hours that graduate students work. Carney said the rule is meant to prevent graduate students from being overworked, one of the Coalition’s main demands. Robinson worries it will be implemented as a way to identify and withhold pay from striking workers.
Robinson is even more troubled by the requirement that graduate students work through the learning management system Canvas. The administration maintains that using the system to track graduate student work will ensure graduate students aren’t hindered by their job responsibilities. Robinson disagrees.
“It’s a threat to academic freedom to say someone will be surveilled by a learning management system,” Robinson said. “There are cases of instructors who participated in strikes having their learning management systems subpoenaed.”
Despite their objections, many graduate workers already have signed the new contract. Doctoral student Sabina Ali said she was caught off guard when she was asked to sign the new contract, despite having already submitted her agreement.
“I’ve seen (the contracts) before I got mine because they were circulating among others and others were signing them already,” Ali said. “I had the impression I wasn’t going to have to sign one of the new ones because I’d already signed one in May, so both me and my direct employer were really taken aback.”
Ali believes that unless the contracts are renegotiated, a new strike seems certain.
“No one is looking forward to another huge strike in the fall, but it will happen if things continue the way they’ve continued,” Ali said.
The Coalition suspended its strike in the summer after the trustees refused to recognize the union, despite support from the majority of IU faculty. The Coalition called on faculty in an email to sign their petition, “to honor their vote and underscore their commitment to graduate workers’ rights.”
The IU administration wants to resolve graduate student concerns through a special task force, while the Coalition says that the union is necessary to protect student interests.
