Graduate student workers protest amid rising austerity

On 1 May graduate students at more than 75 public and private universities across the United States and Canada mobilised under the name ‘X Campus’ to protest unfair conditions for student workers as a result of growing austerity in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the choice to mobilise on May Day was strategic, many of these students have been protesting working conditions for years, writes Mary Retta for The Nation.

Graduate student workers, who often run labs, assist professors and even teach their own courses on campus, often receive very low pay, are not guaranteed housing, and do not have benefits such as paid sick leave. As universities enact austerity measures such as increased furloughs and pay decreases as a result of the pandemic, many student workers are nervous that their already tenuous living conditions will be put under even more stress.

“We’ve noticed a pattern where schools are quick to furlough or get rid of labour on campus to make sure their revenue is not affected,” said Valentina Luketa, a graduate student at Indiana University Bloomington. “But a lot of these schools have huge endowments, about as big as the GDP of my home country of Croatia in some cases. We’re just asking them to use that money to protect workers and protect the educational experiences of students.”
Full report on The Nation site