Three of the state’s most high-profile Democratic candidates spoke at a rally for the University of Maine Graduate Workers Union on Friday to support its ongoing contract negotiations.
Graham Platner and Jordan Wood, who are both running for U.S. Senate, were joined by Troy Jackson, who is running for Maine governor.
The rally was held on UMaine’s campus in support of the graduate union’s ongoing contract negotiations. The union is seeking higher wages, better health care and more paid time off and represents graduate workers, research assistants and teaching assistants across the system.
Master’s students receive a minimum of $17,000 for their nine-month stipends, which covers 20 hours of work a week. Students also typically receive health benefits and tuition waivers, according to Samantha Warren, chief external and governmental affairs officer for the University of Maine system.
The University of Maine Graduate Workers Union has been bargaining with the university system since November 2023. Negotiations between the union and the system are nearing 700 days, more than 200 days longer than the 465 day average, according to a 2022 analysis from Bloomberg Law.
Platner, Wood and Jackson all spoke to the crowd of roughly 150 students, faculty and staff in support of the union.
Wood told the student workers that they should continue bargaining and rallying for a contract and that they are why Wood said he still believes in the future of the country and the Democratic party.
He also called on every Democratic candidate in the state to come to UMaine’s campus to show their support for the union.
Jackson followed, and said the university is not treating its graduate workers fairly and should not be getting the funding they ask for from the state until they do.
“If they want the funding they got, then they have to do right by people like you every day of the week,” Jackson said.
Platner, who was wearing a shirt from the American band Dropkick Murphys that said “Fighting Nazis since 1996,” called upon the students to keep working toward contract negotiations and said the contract is one step of many the state and country need to take to allow labor organizing to succeed.
The Protect the Right to Organize Act should be ratified while the Protect Workers Rights Act should be defended against a Trump administration that is cutting collective bargaining rights, Platner said.
After the event, Platner said the university should take the candidates showing support for a graduate student contract seriously.
“I have a feeling that if they think that people who may be the future governor and the future United States senator are outside in support of this, that is going to make them think twice about screwing the grad workers,” Platner said.
Before the candidates spoke, graduate students told personal stories of having to donate plasma or work a second job to afford rent and groceries. Multiple students said they’ve faced large hospital bills because of a lack of health care.
The system is negotiating with the union in good fatih and remains “committed to achieving an agreement that is responsive to the requests of these student workers and the operational needs and increasingly constrained resources of our public institutions,” Warren said.
