Jennifer Rexroat thought she was getting a great deal when she signed on as a graduate student in political science and women’s studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago: she’d get to study what she loved in exchange for teaching two classes a year. But three and a half years later she finds herself “upwards of $30,000” in debt–not because she’s splurging, but because UIC pays her only about $7,000 a year. So she’s helping to organize a union at the school.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Nascent unions at UIC and the University of Chicago are far from being ready to hold representation elections. But they are canvassing students, holding conferences, exposing wage and hiring practices long kept under wraps, and sponsoring petition drives. About 200 of UIC’s 2,100 graduate students who work as clericals and as teaching and research assistants have joined the Graduate Employees’ Organization since the union started work on the Chicago campus in January of this year (GEO is affiliated with the Illinois Federation of Teachers, which supplies a full-time organizer and some funds). GEO’s steering committee hopes to have 1,000 members by May, but many graduate students haven’t even heard of GEO yet. “Our main issue is name recognition,” says Daniel Zellman, a third-year doctoral student and teaching assistant in English and a member of the steering committee.
At the University of Chicago grad students teach much less on average than their counterparts at public universities, thanks to U. of C.’s tradition of having full-time faculty teach undergraduates. But inspired by the success of a union at the University of Iowa and angry about low wages for graduate employees in the humanities, U. of C. grad students founded a union last January.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Jennifer Rexroat photo by Randy Tunnell.
