Vanderbilt University graduate students have collected hundreds of union authorization cards from colleagues, leaders say — a major step in winning official recognition from the school before the end of the year. Late last year, campus organizers officially associated with the United Auto Workers, which claims more than 400,000 active union members, in hopes of unionizing an estimated 2,200 graduate student workers.
Students cited insufficient pay, unsafe working conditions and precarious terms of employment during a lunchtime rally hosted by Vanderbilt Graduate Workers United on Feb. 14 outside the Jean and Alexander Heard Library. Organizers began circulating union authorization cards in late January, kicking off a lengthy and complicated process that could win student employees union protections, including the ability to collectively bargain with Vanderbilt. These cards signal a student-employee’s desire to vote on a union. Cards go to the National Labor Relations Board, the independent federal entity that adjudicates labor disputes and elections. Signatories remain anonymous to an employer — it’s illegal for Vanderbilt even to ask who signed — and with enough cards, the NLRB oversees a formal union election.
Kelly Cunningham, co-president of Vanderbilt Graduate Workers United, tells the Scene that organizers expect to collect signed union authorization cards from about 60 percent of eligible student-employees. Signed cards from just 30 percent of student-employees could trigger an official union election overseen by the NLRB. Organizers are holding out for a supermajority before filing for a vote, a tactic intended to build momentum and emphasize union strength.
“We’re hoping to have an election before the end of the year,” says Cunningham, a Ph.D. student in philosophy who also teaches undergraduates. “It’s about a living wage. It’s about making things fair and equal.”
About 50 people showed up at Vanderbilt’s Library Lawn for the Valentine’s Day rally. Supporters’ signs showed off slogans like “You Can’t Spell Union Without ‘U’ and ‘I’!” and “Vandy’s Stipend Breaks My Heart.” Major questions remain about the real size of the campus bargaining unit — the subset of employees potentially covered by a union contract — a determination that ultimately falls to the NLRB.
The Vanderbilt administration, which would bargain opposite a graduate student union, said the following in a memo to faculty on Oct. 31: “We do not consider graduate students to be employees and do not believe that they meet the definition of employee under the National Labor Relations Act. As a result, we do not believe unionizing is appropriate for our graduate students.”
The memo highlights recent steps by the administration to improve graduate students’ pay and health benefits and explains how to talk with students about unionization without violating labor laws. Chancellor Daniel Diermeier previously opposed student unionization at the University of Chicago, where he served as provost.
In response to questions about union organizing, Vanderbilt shared a written statement with the Scene that reads, in part: “Graduate students receive a comprehensive package of financial aid that includes tuition remission, stipends, funds to support their professional development and other financial support. We look forward to our upcoming meeting with the Graduate Student Council, the elected representative body for graduate students, to share some positive updates regarding increases in stipends.”
A 2016 ruling by the NLRB set off a graduate student unionization wave across the country. The decision, prompted by student organizers at Columbia University, officially extended protections of the National Labor Relations Act to graduate research and teaching assistants at private universities. Columbia, Harvard, New York University, Yale, Northwestern, Georgetown and Brown all won graduate student unions in the subsequent years, many of which are represented by the UAW. Graduate students at Emory and Duke won unions in August. Princeton raised graduate students’ stipends by 25 percent in response to union organizing efforts. Student-employee unions have longer, deeper roots at public universities like Michigan, Wisconsin and California. Employees of the U.C. system won new contracts in late 2022 after 48,000 workers went on strike.
A $9.7 billion endowment headlined Vanderbilt’s strong 2023 financial report, which the school released in November. The school included $937 million in cash and cash equivalents in the same report. Graduate students say that base pay across most departments ranges from $28,000 at the Peabody School of Education to $38,000 in the biomedical sciences, wage levels that precipitate a cost-of-living crisis among students at one of the nation’s wealthiest schools in one of the city’s most expensive areas. A 25 percent bump in base stipend pay would cost Vanderbilt about $20 million annually.
Graduate work creates a particularly lopsided power dynamic for international students, who depend on university support for a visa and legally can’t work additional jobs. Other graduate students are explicitly discouraged from taking second jobs and face restrictions on the amount of hours they can work for Vanderbilt, organizers say, though many take off-campus employment anyway to make ends meet.
Rent and fees at the Broadview apartment complex, a Midtown residential building recently completed by Vanderbilt, start around $1,550 per month. It’s 57 percent full as of Feb. 15. Broadview is advertised as student housing, but some graduate students see it as the symbol of an out-of-touch employer.
Cost crunches have gone hand in hand with professional and academic pressure. In 2022, students called for more responsive mental health care and healthier workplace expectations, especially for Ph.D. students, after a rash of graduate student deaths by suicide. The VGSU, a volunteer coalition of graduate students that has anchored unionization efforts for several years without official union protections, helped students win dental coverage in 2023 with petition drives and public advocacy.
When and if students get enough signed authorization cards, graduate student organizers will file for an election with legal help from the UAW. At that point, Vanderbilt could choose to recognize a graduate student union voluntarily or force a campus-wide vote. Graduate students win a union with a simple majority of votes.
“We’ve had many victories through the power of collective bargaining,” Ethan Link told the crowd on Feb. 14. Link is an organizer with the Laborers’ International Union of North America, which has represented dining and maintenance workers at Vanderbilt since 1972. “Of course, there’s pay increases and benefit increases, but the real power is the dignity and respect that you will earn — and you must earn it — that will protect you against unfair and unequal treatment. It’s going to take a long time, and it’s going to take hard work, but I know you can do it. I want to congratulate you on taking your first step. We’re proud to stand in solidarity with Vanderbilt’s new graduate student union.”
