Members of NMSU Graduate Workers United marched to Hadley Hall on Friday, Sept. 20, and delivered their Intent to Bargain to Interim President Mónica Torres. The union’s goal was to ask the university to renew and improve its contract with the union, as the current contract expires at the end of 2024.
“So basically, how it works is we’re going to take language from our first contract and try to make it better for our interests,” Alexander Allison, Domestic Chief Steward of the union said.
One of the group’s concerns is an increase in pay. The group argued that they aren’t being fairly compensated for the actual amount of hours they work.
“You spend countless hours doing your research, moreover, day out, late into the night, sacrifice so much of your personal time and weekends, and yet you never pay barely enough or any of that, right? So all this financial burden is really heavy, all over all of our heads,” a union member said.
Vice President of the union, Riley Schaner, expressed concern that single mothers are dropping out of her program because they aren’t paid enough to support their families.
“They’re trying to provide better lives for themselves and their children, forced to choose whether they work a full-time job right now or they go to school and they go into debt because they’re going to school at NMSU that pays like [that] so you know what? I’m just fed up with it,” Schaner told union members.
The group is also advocating for a different bargaining location. The union president, Lindley Hornsby said their current bargaining location limits accessibility for union members.
“We want to negotiate in a centralized, accessible location, and NMSU has been trying to bust our union since day one, right? And one of their tactics for busting our union is making us bargain way out in the sticks,” Hornsby said, “…we started bargaining in Hadley Hall during our first contract, and as soon as we had members showing up and protesting outside of Hadley Hall, NMSU changed our bargaining location.”
Union members said they have faced opposition from the university before. Some members shared frustration with the university’s attitude towards the union.
“Since we started, since the union was even thought about happening back in 2020, or so, there’s been opposition faced every step of the way, mostly in the form of the university dragging their feet on working with us, ignoring us a lot of the time in terms of information requests,” Allison explained.
Despite the past opposition, Allison expressed hope that negotiations with the university will go well this year.
“We really hope that university administration . . . cooperates with us in negotiations and displays good faith negotiations,” Allison said.
The university released a statement affirming the work done by graduate students.
“As always, NMSU is supportive of our students,” NMSU said. “The work done by our graduate assistants is valuable to our mission. We look forward to continuing our conversations as part of the collective bargaining process.”
