GEO Stands in Solidarity with HGSU

The Graduate Employees’ Organization at UIUC (IFT/AFT Local 6300) stands in solidarity with the workers of the Harvard Graduate Students Union (HGSU-UAW), who have been on strike since December 3rd. The graduate students at Harvard, who voted to unionize in April of 2018, voted overwhelmingly to strike after more than a year of negotiations with the university. Their demands include wage increases, comprehensive health care packages and child care benefits, and workplace protections against harassment and discrimination. 

The Harvard administration released a statement calling the strike “unwarranted,” while also claiming that student workers play a “vital role in fulfilling Harvard’s teaching and research mission.” If the university truly believed this, it should have no issues with offering  HGSU a fair contract. But like many in our union, striking HGSU workers are rent-burdened and struggle to make ends meet.  We at the GEO are all too familiar with this sort of rhetoric from our employers, who dismiss our demands for just compensation and basic respect on the job as outlandish and unrealistic. We also know that the gains grad unions have made across the country have not come from the benevolence and good-will of university administrators; they have come from years of organizing and hard-fought battles. Graduate students have continued to win against overwhelming odds by standing shoulder to shoulder with one another on picket lines, and by believing in the power of worker solidarity. Harvard knows that it is on the wrong side of history--that’s why undergrads and faculty across the campus have shown such strong support for the HGSU.

Graduate workers and educators are at the forefront of a resurgent labor movement in America, as evidenced by the GEO’s victorious 2018 strike against the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The HGSU is carrying on this tradition of militant unionism and we express our support and solidarity with them as they march onward to get the justice and dignity that all workers deserve. 

The Graduate Employees’ Organization, AFT/IFT Local 6300, AFL-CIO, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, represents approximately 2,700 Teaching and Graduate Assistants on the UIUC Campus. In November 2009 and in February 2018, over 1,000 GEO members and allies participated in a strike to secure a fair contract and more accessible UIUC campus. With an active presence in the community, the GEO continues to work for high-quality and accessible public education in Illinois.

For more information, please contact geo@uigeo.org. More information can also be found on GEO’s website at www.uiucgeo.org.

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