Oregon State University graduate student workers went on strike this week to push for raises and to keep shorter union contracts.
Their union president says the institution continues to refuse demands for raises while also pushing for a longer contract—something that would lock in the university’s lower offers for longer.
Austin Bosgraaf, president of the American Federation of Teachers–affiliated Coalition of Graduate Employees, said his union has about 1,000 research and teaching assistants at the Corvallis campus who are dues-paying members. These grad workers began striking Tuesday after more than a year of bargaining failed to produce a contract, he said.
“These negotiations have been very slow; the university has stonewalled,” Bosgraaf said. He said he thinks the “double whammy of the extended contract and insufficient salary proposal” from the university persuaded his members to walk off the job.
The university’s lowest-paid grad workers bring home roughly $1,400 monthly after taxes, and the union is demanding a 40 percent raise that would bring those least-compensated up to what the average grad worker is paid, Bosgraaf said. In an email Thursday, a university spokesperson said the current minimum hourly wage is about $25 and its most recent offer is a 14 percent raise. The university didn’t provide interviews.
“The university has been bargaining for a contract that both honors the important work of graduate employees and recognizes that as a steward of public funds and student tuition dollars, OSU must meet its obligation to manage resources appropriately,” the spokesperson wrote.
In addition to pay, the length of the proposed new contract is a big issue for the grad student union. Since the union formed in the 1990s, Bosgraaf said, it’s had four-year contracts. He said the now-expired contract also had a “reopener” provision allowing for official renegotiations on four contract articles every two years. Now, he said, the university is pushing for a five-year contract with no reopener, and the union has countered with a three-year contract, also without that provision.
The university didn’t say Thursday how many classes have been canceled due to the strike or how many grad workers are withholding their labor. Bosgraaf said it’s hard to tell how many are striking, but there were 600 members on the picket line Tuesday and nearly 400 out in the pouring rain Wednesday.
