The University of Alaska announced on Tuesday night that it had reached a tentative agreement on its first contract with the newly formed union representing the university system’s graduate students, who voted overwhelmingly to unionize last fall.
The contract between the University of Alaska and the Alaska Graduate Workers Association includes an increase in the minimum pay for graduate students, setting minimum time off, continued health coverage, improved reporting for grievances and improved access to university facilities. Both the union and the university hope to ratify the contract and forward the funding request to the Alaska Legislature.
“We’re super proud of this contract on both sides. We’re especially proud of the timeline in which we were able to come to an agreement,” Nóra McIntyre, graduate teaching assistant and member of the AGWA/UAW bargaining committee. “To get that done, both sides worked really long hours here at the end.”
The timing is critical because the most straightforward way to fund the contract’s terms — which includes raising the minimum pay for master’s degree students to $24.50 an hour and Ph.D. students to $29 an hour — is to get it approved in the state budget, which the Legislature is in the process of finalizing before the end of the legislative session on May 15.
In the university’s announcement, UA President Pat Pitney committed to submitting the request to the Legislature for inclusion in this year’s budget, though it’s possible that it could be retroactively funded if it’s not included in the budget.
“Our bargaining team has worked tirelessly — particularly over the last week — to reach an agreement,” she said in a prepared statement. “I want to sincerely thank and recognize them for their willingness to go the extra mile on behalf of our graduate student employees and the University. Throughout these negotiations, our goal has been to support graduate students through fair compensation increases while ensuring the contract is financially sustainable.”
The effort to organize the University of Alaska’s graduate students began in the early days of the COVID pandemic when students started connecting and realizing they all shared many of the same problems with the system. That included low pay and difficult working conditions where it sometimes felt like workplace problems weren’t being heard and fairly handled.
McIntyre said the efforts to organize brought the graduate student community closer together and showed them to be passionate and dedicated to the university. This is important as the university works to achieve its vaunted R1 status as a top-tier research campus, a move that officials hope will bring in more funding and opportunities. For McIntyre, it was also an exciting opportunity to be part of a resurgent labor movement.
“Honestly, it feels fabulous,” she said. “It was really exciting, inspiring and gratifying to see that level of engagement from our unit, folks in solidarity, members of the community and other unions show up and show the university that we’re really passionate about the demands we’re fighting for. I think we did see that the power of collective action is really impactful.”
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.