Graduate students around the country protest low pay

Thousands of graduate student workers at private and public universities around the United States have gone on strike over the past few years, from Ivy League institutions like Harvard University and Columbia University to public state universities in California, writes Michael Sainato for The Guardian.

Graduate workers at even more colleges have organised unions in spite of staunch opposition from their administrations. Among the most pressing unifying themes among graduate student workers organising unions and holding protest actions and strikes is the low pay, an issue plaguing graduate student workers around the US.

“We have to stop spreading the ‘I get paid to study!’ narrative of graduate school,” said Zara Anwarzai, a PhD candidate in philosophy and cognitive science at Indiana University Bloomington who receives about US$20,000 a year. “As you go through a program, you realise to what extent your work in your departments and the university have benefited them. They need your labour as a teacher and researcher, they need you as someone who takes on unpaid service roles, and they need your academic and professional reputation.”
Full report on The Guardian site