As an international graduate student, I am not afraid to unionize

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I am an international graduate student from Peru, and I have been a Syracuse Graduate Employees United Organizing Committee member for more than a year. From my research experience in labor in Peru, unions not only bring improvements to the workplace but are crucial contributors to democracy worldwide.
When I got accepted into the Ph.D. program for sociology, I was excited to get a degree while getting a stipend to live on. It sounded like a good deal.

After only a year and a half of living in Syracuse, I now see my stipend does not come close to a living wage. This past winter break, I could not visit Peru to spend time with my family during the holidays as I did not have money for a plane ticket. Over the last three months, I have been relying on the Vineyard Church food pantry because I can’t afford groceries. And I’m scared of getting sick, having to go to the doctor and not being able to pay the bill.

But when we organize as a union, we can gain improvements to wages, benefits and overall increased support and protections for international students.

Of course, organizing a union does not come without its challenges. Speaking with my international colleagues about our union, I realized that a majority support forming it, yet there are still often questions on our right to do so. Being in a country that is not our own and where our ability to continue studying is contingent on our visa status makes us more vulnerable than domestic workers.

As a result, I would like to dispel some of the concerns international students could have as SGEU reaches super-majority support. I have considered many of these concerns myself, as an international student with an F-1 visa, and I have researched these topics and talked with international students at other universities who enjoy unionized benefits.

International graduate employees have the same labor rights as United States citizens under the National Labor Relations Act. This means that international graduate workers can organize and form a union and exercise their right to strike without the fear of being fired or penalized. Moreover, due to overwhelming support, we were able to secure an election and neutrality agreement from the Syracuse University administration. This means that the administration has agreed not to take a stance on our decision to unionize and to not engage in anti-union campaigning or retaliation.

Another concern I have heard about is how a strike could affect our status. It’s important to note that strikes are incredibly rare, which is why they are so newsworthy when they happen.

Currently, SU has four legally recognized collective bargaining units on campus that they have
been working with for decades. However, in the rare event graduate employees decide to strike, it would be decided by all the union’s members democratically — including international graduate employees, who make up over 40% of the total graduate student body — and only if necessary during the contract bargaining process. I am not afraid, and you should not be either, because being involved in a union and going on strike is legally protected in the U.S.

Some international students have also raised concerns about how unionization might affect our tax status. Others have some questions about union dues. The truth is that being unionized or under a bargaining contract won’t change our residency and visa status, and we will continue paying taxes as we do now.

When it comes to dues, it’s important to note we will pay union dues only after our first contract gets negotiated and then ratified by a majority vote of all graduate student employees. I, for one, would not vote for a contract where the benefits we win aren’t worth the dues we pay. Besides, that money will help self-fund our worker organization to have the staff, offices, printing and legal support we need. A self-funded organization could even establish a special committee focused on the particular challenges workers with student visas face, as the graduate workers union at Columbia University has done.

As the graduate worker movement has grown across the country, graduate unions are winning impressive gains for international students. At the University of Illinois-Chicago, the graduate union won new policies that guarantee summer housing for international students. At the University of Michigan, the University of Washington and UMass-Amherst, unions have won reimbursement of the SEVIS fee. At Harvard University, the administration is obligated to provide workers with additional legal support by maintaining a list of immigration attorneys and paid legal aid. After forming their union, graduate workers at Georgetown won contract language that guarantees that the university will rehire international students who experience an interruption in their job authorization or visa status. None of this would have been achieved without international and domestic grad students organizing together to build power on their campuses.

The time has come for us, international student workers, to have a voice in our working and living conditions. I invite you to share this information with your fellow graduate students and join me in adding your name to our vote yes pledge. By building the union movement at SU, we can create an inclusive and democratic university that works for everyone.

Sergio Miguel Saravia López is a Ph.D. student in sociology.