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After launching its unionization campaign on Jan. 17 in pursuit of improved working conditions at Syracuse University, Syracuse Graduate Employees United announced two election dates for members to decide on whether to certify its unionization effort.

SGEU will host voting sessions on April 3 and April 4 between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. at the JMA Wireless Dome in hopes of officially entering formal negotiations with the university administration, said Lauren Ashby, a member of the SGEU organizing committee and master’s student in geography.

On Wednesday, SGEU hosted in-person and virtual sessions to discuss specifics on the union election agreement with SU and clarify logistics for the election vote in April.

SGEU announced it had reached an election agreement with the university on March 1. The next day, SU’s Provost, Vice Chancellor and Chief Academic Officer Gretchen Ritter notified SU students via email about the joint agreement and encouraged a respectful and equitable process in a co-signed message with Scott Phillipson, president of the Service Employees International Union.

In a separate Tuesday email to the SU community, Ritter said the university will not take a formal position on if SGEU decides to vote in favor of a union or not. SU also created a webpage with frequently asked questions to inform students, faculty and staff about the unionization process.

“What we will do is encourage our graduate students to give this careful consideration and make an informed decision,” Ritter wrote in the Tuesday email. “Should our graduate students make the collective decision to unionize, we will engage their union in the same collaborative, transparent and fair manner as we do with our existing union partners.”

Ashby said SGEU is working with SU’s administration to create a path to a fair and neutral election process. The university currently works with four unions which represent a total of approximately 1,400 university employees, according to Ritter’s Tuesday message.

Ashby said the agreement with SU allowed SGEU to secure a union election in the wake of anti-union efforts at other institutions like Temple University, which students presented as a concern for the unionization effort during forums.

If SGEU members vote in favor, the union will be able to engage in a formal bargaining process with the university, Ashby said.

“It’s been really awesome to see just how much support we’ve gained, not just among grad workers, but among the campus community at large,” Ashby said.

Over 250 SGEU members and allies marched from Carnegie Library to Crouse-Hinds Hall on Feb. 8 to deliver letters from 14 different campus and community groups demanding the university administration voluntarily recognize its union, including SGEU, the Undergraduate Labor Organization, the Student Association and the Graduate Student Organization.

In its effort to negotiate for better working conditions, graduate workers cited issues like low pay, poor healthcare benefits and high workload demands.

Ashby said that in light of union successes at other institutions, like increased stipends at Brown University as well as capped work hours at Georgetown University and Harvard University, SGEU could potentially start pushing for further compromises with the university.

“There’s a lot of momentum right now around grad worker unions, around kind of big successes and big efforts,” Ashby said. “So it’s been really exciting and it’s going to be awesome to kind of keep that going here and to win our election and to start making real progress.”

Published on March 9, 2023 at 1:27 am

Contact Dominic: dcchiapp@syr.edu | @DominicChiappo2