"Once you understand what a messy, emotional, and destructive dynamic 'fairness' can be, you can see why 'fair' is a tremendously powerful word that you need to use with care."
On the 25th of March 2024, the graduate student workers at BU started to go on strike. It was the last straw for an ongoing negotiation that has been ongoing since June 2023. I've done some reading on the subject and I have also talked to some graduate workers on the picket line. To my knowledge, a couple of things are happening here but to discuss that let's first set the context. There are many demands but to my understanding, there are five main demands:
Disability Accommodations: Currently, disability accommodation requests can take months to fulfill. Essentially the union is bargaining for an expedited more efficient process so that disabled students and workers don't have to constantly wait and struggle in the meantime when their requests are pending.
Medical Benefits and Protections: Faculty and staff get dental and vision coverage but grad workers don't. Grad workers also lack the abuse & harassment protections that other faculty and staff enjoy.
Childcare Benefits: A lot of grad students and workers are fully grown adults with some having kids and families to take care of right now.
Cost of Living Adjustments: 93% of BU grad workers are rent-burdened they can't afford an $850 a month dorm rent because they only make like $15 an hour. The person I talked to said that she couldn't afford her rent and her partner had to pay for utilities and other bills.
Fair Compensation for Fair Workload: Class sizes and work you have to do for classes vary a lot so grad workers get stiffed when they get a heavy workload. And since grad students don't even know what degree of responsibility they have before going into their classes. They're asking classes to be compensated adjusting to the workload of the classes.
The reason this strike has been going on for quite some time now is that BU has taken a popular strategy in negotiation: Attrition. Much like how you would cut off the city's resources when you put it under siege, attrition takes a similar approach. In the case, where you believe that you can outlast your opponent you can delay and delay and delay until your opponents start to bleed. The University can use this strategy of attrition in a variety of ways:
Red Tape and Bureaucracy: We can drown them in paperwork and policies and this and that. BUGWU (Boston University Graduate Workers Union) has reported that BU has said that it would take three years to give everyone appointment letters or when they asked the union to count every single name and every single bulletin board that the union will use to spread the word.
Unserious Offers and Counterproposals: The University can essentially stall the negotiation by continuously negotiating with a nonchalant. With this strategy, they seek to undermine the authority of the Union by essentially insulting them with repeated trivial offers. BUGWU has reported that "they offered us a 3% wage increase over the status quo and a total annual emergency fund of $50,000 to be shared among 3000+ grad workers. They also offered a funding pool of $50,000 to be split among our unit, when annual average childcare costs nationally are over $10,000 per child per year."
This process like any other negotiation is a manifestation of the game of power. It is important that you control power but the most important that you outwardly display power.
Sorry, but the following criticisms may come off a little... Strong.
3000 students are in this union but I fear that they are not bargaining as if they were 3000 people. And there are a few reasons why I think this way. From what I see they are only using maybe 10 - 15% of their entire contingent. I understand that the graduate workers on strike still have classes to attend and such but their presence on campus currently is laughable at best. 20? maybe 30? people in front of the main Marsh Plaza? They have what 3000 people? And only 1% of people show up physically? Consider this, if I'm BU and I've been told that 3000 grad workers have unionised against me I would be alarmed for sure. But then on the day of the strike, I see a mere thirty people outside Marsh Plaza. Where are all these people who signed to strike? Seeing a mere thirty people is not an intimidating sight in the slightest. BU came to the site of battle expecting 3000 and all they saw was 30. 99% of the union was not present. I'm certainly not surprised that BU does not take them seriously because it seems like the grad students themselves are not treating this seriously.
In a time of crisis, organisations need to be decisive. Especially, when you're out there bargaining for your life essentially. There's no room for indecision and complacency. I'm not sure that there is a clear leader in this strike which makes management extremely difficult as there is no clear authority or symbol of respect internally among the union. People can smell hesitation from miles away, Universities aren't filled with saints, once there is blood in the water, the sharks will always come. Once they see doubt, they're not going to be lifting their heels off your necks. The leadership has failed to unite the people and has failed to activate and agitate the 99% of people who are not participating in this strike. Again the power of a union comes from the people and yet, the people are nowhere to be seen.
We all know that being in a meeting room is so different to being in a Zoom call. Which is why I was shocked to hear that these negotiations with the university were happening over Zoom. I was told that many of the leaders were not available or not in Boston and what not which is understandable but not tolerable. The sheer presence of seeing and meeting people in person allows for so much more nuanced communication. Simply meeting over Zoom undermines the seriousness of the topic of conversation and it seriously impacts one's ability to see you as human.
Negotiations with Boston University have been going on since June 2023. After the University has adopted the strategy to continuously delay and delay, not taking decisive action early will cause the union to bleed out. You've waited about a year to strike? If I was the University what am I thinking? Surely it was becoming very obvious that the University was not cooperating. They've insulted you, and spit in your mouth with their counteroffers and delays and now that you've taken this much time to strike, you are in a much weaker position to negotiate. BU can pretty much do whatever they want with you at this point. I was told that "they treated us like children in these negotiations. Like we're somehow not adults or that we don't know what we want." To which I say, they insult you and treat you like children because you've rolled over onto your backside and have repeatedly not taken the steps necessary to ensure the security of the union. You've been on the back foot ever since June 2023 and now finally we have gone on strike.
Now that the graduate students have gone on strike, I would imagine that eventually, the University will have to yield. But I fear the weakness in leadership will cause the union to settle for less than they should. They lack the sort of conviction and focus necessary to run a serious campaign and I really think when you're dealing with a political situation such as this one, to be a practical politician you must know how good your cards are and how to leverage that information to it's maximum effect.
I sympathise with the plight of the Graduate workers of BU. The amount of shit that they have to deal with is shocking and unjust. But to say that they've set themselves up for success is not something that I can wholeheartedly agree with. Do you think the University is going to have the union's best interest in mind? Who is there to blame when negotiations don't go their way? There's only one thing you can blame really.
