Our history

The movement for graduate student organizing doesn't start at the University of Chicago. It starts in 1969 at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, when teaching assistants affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers. There are now some 23 officially recognized graduate employee unions all across the country, including at some of the largest public universities like the University of California, and there have been long-running organizing campaigns at other places like Yale and NYU. In some places, like Yale, graduate students have been highly successful in winning additional rights and benefits without ever becoming officially recognized. The Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions, formed in 1992, connects these different groups (including ours!).

GSU at Chicago formed in spring 2007, in response to the administration's tactless Graduate Aid Initiative, which promised vastly improved funding for new graduate students while completely ignoring the needs of existing graduate students. Since then we have been discussing how best to organize on our campus; doing research on our teaching conditions, wages and health benefits; and gradually finding a larger and larger membership. We have put together a petition calling for more health care (and abolition of AR tuition and fees); distributed fliers on the state of bad teaching pay; and held a rally and a protest for our cause. Currently we are working on a membership drive.