This story was originally published in Vol. 34, Issue 3 (November 2023)
A group of graduate students marched around WSU Vancouver holding signs, protesting what they claim to be unethical treatment of their labor on Sept. 27. These claims include meager pay, extended working hours, and inadequate healthcare coverage. Within this group of research assistants (RAs) and teaching assistants (TAs), the sentiment is that they are stretched thin, often overworked and underpaid for the essential roles they play at WSU Vancouver.
WSU Vancouver’s 2023 Campus Profile, which published on March 15, listed the campus as having 86 graduate assistants in Fall 2022. This demographic primarily consists of graduate students pursuing master’s or doctoral degrees at WSU Vancouver, who, as part of their academic requirements, take on research and teaching responsibilities on campus, for which they are compensated. These academic student employees work within a greater union spanning across all WSU campuses.
In response to student employees’ claims of unfair labor practices, the Washington State University Coalition of Academic Student Employees, known as WSU-CASE, has emerged as a collective force across several WSU campuses, including the Vancouver campus. Formed in 2022, WSU-CASE is a union working to enhance the working and living conditions of academic student employees responsible for activities such as teaching, grading, and conducting scientific experiments. Currently, WSU-CASE is actively working towards forming a union contract with WSU to safeguard the labor rights of graduate students, with the aim of benefiting qualified employees across several WSU campuses.
One of the most common grievances voiced by coalition members revolves around low salaries and the demanding work hours that academic student employees say they endure. Many of these hours often go uncompensated according to the coalition. Zoe Wilson, a third-year biology master’s student at WSU Vancouver and labor movement advocate, offered their insight.
“Your program looks like you’re spending 20 hours a week doing some sort of assistantship with the university, whether that’s as a TA or primarily a TA in most places, but you might also have a different sort of assistantship,” said Wilson. “In addition to whatever your coursework is, and then in addition to completing whatever your research is, most universities don’t pay particularly high salaries, and they only pay you for those 20 hours a week.”
In an Aug. 2022 open letter published by The Daily Evergreen at WSU Pullman, Master of Arts graduate student Jocelyn McKinnon-Crowley claimed that the minimum graduate student workers were allowed to be paid annually was $14,500.
Healthcare coverage is another pressing concern that the coalition claims has been neglected by the WSU administration. In ongoing negotiations between WSU-CASE and the administration, healthcare emerges as a pivotal issue in addressing the needs of graduate students. WSU-CASE filed a lawsuit in September alleging unfair labor practices in healthcare negotiations, citing the exclusion of union members from WSU’s search for a new healthcare provider for qualified employees. Becca Jones, a sixth-year biology Ph.D. student at WSU Vancouver actively involved in the negotiations, expressed their frustration.
“They actually were in negotiations to find a new provider for graduate students,” said Jones. “And they didn’t include us in on that, and actually presented us with limited information. And not only did that technically violate the law by not including us, but it also kind of disrespected that we were asking for an option to bargain as equals that we wanted to be a part of this… So we’re filing this unfair labor practice based on that.”
Union members claim that Washington State University’s exclusion of relevant stakeholders from the process has further galvanized student workers in their fight for basic living conditions, including access to healthcare. Members claim student employees find themselves in a precarious situation due to their low salaries, rendering them ineligible for governmental or state aid programs such as Medicaid or food stamps. According to the union, this financial predicament exacerbates the difficulties in meeting healthcare needs, adding to the challenges faced by these employees.
Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education at WSU Vancouver Dr. Christine Portfors plays a pivotal role in the administration’s negotiations with WSU-CASE employees, working to find common ground on labor demands raised by the union. Among the prominent demands of academic student employees is the pursuit of a livable wage, a challenge made even more daunting given WSU’s constrained financial resources, which are spread across multiple campuses. Portfors acknowledged this economic constraint.
“Well, the big challenge, I think, that everybody knows is economics, that with our graduate student union and other unions across the country, the graduate students are negotiating for higher salaries than what we currently pay them,” said Portfors. “So that’s a big thing that they are negotiating for that we have not agreed upon yet.”
One of the primary challenges faced by the administration in meeting wage demands and addressing other financially intensive requests is the declining enrollment that many universities, including Washington State University, are currently experiencing. A significant portion of university budgets is contingent on student enrollment according to Portfors. With fewer students attending classes across all campuses, WSU’s administration grapples with diminished resources. This decline in enrollment has led to reduced revenue while operating costs remain unchanged. Portfors elaborated on the significance of enrollment to the budget.
“Enrollment has a huge impact on the budget because WSU is funded by enrollment, both by state dollars and tuition,” said Portfors. “WSU Vancouver’s enrollments are lower than they were in 2019. And so that means we have less revenue coming in and at the same costs, so that makes it challenging and, and across the whole system, the budget is challenging.”
As negotiations between academic student employees and the administration continue, both graduate students and administrators are acutely aware of their dependence on enrollment data to determine available resources. The outcome of these negotiations is poised to shape not only the lives of these individuals but also the landscape of labor relations at WSU.