Last fall, a supermajority of UNM’s graduate employees formed a union and filed for certification under the Public Employee Bargaining Act (PEBA) in order to address the poverty wages, inadequate benefits and poor working conditions many graduate workers face as University employees.
Graduate workers provide valuable labor to the University, which includes grading, conducting research and teaching 500 undergraduate courses each semester. However, the average graduate employee stipend is $14,438 per year, which is barely above the federal poverty line and almost $9,000 below the living wage for a single adult in Albuquerque.
Mobilizing over 1,000 graduate workers to join the Union through a mostly virtual platform — all union cards were signed during the COVID-19 pandemic — remains a huge victory for the United Graduate Workers of UNM.
UNM administration, however, did not partake in celebrating this victory. Instead, they filed a petition that argued that graduate workers should be excluded from coverage under the PEBA.
It is disheartening to know that UNM administration paid an outside lawyer over $50,000 to make this argument and stall the bargaining process with the Union, especially while graduate workers suffered from the stressful conditions of a pandemic and one of the worst rental rate hikes nationally.
A hearing was held in April that allowed both the United Graduate Workers and UNM administration to make their cases to the Public Employee Labor Relations Board (PELRB), which consists of three members appointed by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. This Tuesday, Aug. 3, the PELRB will decide whether graduate workers at UNM are regular employees covered under the PEBA.
UNM administration has shamefully chosen a path of conflict by challenging graduate workers’ status under the PEBA, which provides an orderly process for bargaining contracts between employees and employers. If the PELRB rules in UNM’s favor, however, graduate employees can still demand voluntary recognition outside of the PEBA through other means, such as signing petitions, holding demonstrations and withholding labor.
While graduate workers would much rather spend their time bargaining a fair contract with the University, if UNM administration gets their way and graduate workers are excluded from the PEBA, the graduate union will have no other choice but to organize 1,600 graduate workers to pressure the University to voluntarily recognize the Union.
UNM could have easily avoided this long and costly legal battle by recognizing the graduate union and working with them to make our university a place where graduate employees can thrive and are recognized for their valuable contributions to our academic community. UNM can still do this by voluntarily recognizing the Union. Graduate workers are ready to begin a dialogue with the administration, but they need to meet us at the bargaining table. Until then, graduate workers will use all tools available to them to pressure UNM to do the right thing.
Alana Bock is an organizing member of the United Graduate Workers of UNM
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