Graduate student workers at the University of Maine rallied again in Orono on Wednesday to call on the University of Maine System to move forward with union contract negotiations.
The union has been in talks for more than 10 months for its first contract, and members say the university system’s representatives are stalling, arriving unprepared and canceling meetings.
Aurora Green, a second-year Ph.D. student in the clinical psychology program, who earns $20,000 working as a research assistant, said it’s frustrating that the system doesn’t seem to take negotiations seriously, when graduate students do so much work on campus.
“We teach and perform research and administrative work, and we grade and mentor and so much more. We’re the backbone of the UMaine system’s educational research mission, and yet, we’re the lowest paid graduate workers at a public university in New England,” Green said.
The union is calling for improvements to pay, health benefits and protections for international workers.
Em Sowles, a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the physics department, told fellow rallygoers that graduate workers support the university system’s renowned research institutions, but are treated poorly at work.
“We are working as top-of-the-line academics in our respective fields, and yet we are not respected for the work that we do or the value we bring to this university,” Sowles said. “We are seen as infantile students when it is convenient to the administration, and we are seen as workers when our work can be exploited by them.”
A university system spokesperson said the labor relations team is currently in negotiations with three other unions, and relies on state funding to improve conditions without shifting costs to students. The system is optimistic that an agreement can be reached that is “appropriately timely and responsive to the requests of the graduate student workers within the existing resources of our public institutions.”
This article appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.
