After several years of organizing and legal battles, the University of Alaska system’s graduate students have voted to form a union.
Votes were counted last week, showing an overwhelming majority of graduate students supported unionization, with 314 votes in favor of unionizing to just 11 against. About three-quarters of the system’s graduate students, about 450, participated in the vote to officially form the Alaska Graduate Workers Association under the United Auto Workers, which already represents more than 100,000 workers in higher education nationwide.
“This has been a long time coming,” said Caitlyn Oliver Brown, a graduate research assistant at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and spokesperson for the unionization effort. “It started out in the early days of COVID when some grad students reached out across departments and started talking about issues and realized they all had very similar issues. They realized that just one-on-one talking to the university hadn’t solved these issues and that collective action was going to be the best way.”
One concern was adequate pay. Oliver Brown noted that under current pay, many graduate students live in dry cabins where running water and non-wood heat are luxuries. Other concerns included accessible health care plans and improved working conditions where complaints can be heard and fairly handled. She said the current system can be particularly tough for international students, whose visa status can be held over them in disputes.
The effort to unionize hasn’t come easy. It took several legal battles to determine the size and scope of the union. Once the unionization vote neared, the UA leadership sent out what Oliver Brown said was “a lot of misinformation on exactly how unions work” that the group spent a lot of time debunking.
She said the results show the movement’s strength, where 96% of the graduate students who participated in the vote supported unionization.
“That shows we aren’t intimidated,” she said. “We know what we want and are going to fight. We are also proud to be here at the University of Alaska. We do want to work here, we just want to be treated better. We are here for the long haul.”
As for what’s next, Oliver Brown said the group will work with members to determine what issues are at the forefront — pay, health care, family care and other working conditions — as they open negotiations with the University of Alaska. They’ll also be electing a bargaining committee.
The graduate students’ vote is just one of many recent wins for organized labor, both nationally and in Alaska. Oliver Brown said people are starting to wake up to the unfair and inequitable working conditions and that together, they can make a difference.
“It’s really nice to see this resurgence in unions and union membership. I think that’s because a lot of people are starting to realize the way they are working — both within and outside academia — is not good, is not healthy for us,” she said. “We’re realizing the only way to fight this is together. That’s the best way things can happen.”
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.
