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On Wednesday evening, Oct. 30, at an emergency meeting on Stanford University’s campus, the Stanford Graduate Workers Union (SGWU) launched a strike authorization vote after the union’s negotiations with the university broke down. The union and university are at odds about wage increases, housing, transit benefits, protections against discrimination for student workers, guaranteed funding and the inclusion of graduate students on fellowships in the union.
The union, which gained recognition in July of 2023, has been negotiating with the university for its first contract since November 2023. SGWU represents approximately 5,000 graduate student workers.
Union leadership alleges that Stanford has been “stalling” and “failing to make sufficient movement on key priorities” during negotiations, but university representatives say that they have been actively engaging with union leadership and have been making “significant progress in recent bargaining sessions.”
“The university is constructively engaged in the process and remains committed to negotiating with (SGWU) until an agreement is reached,” said Stanford spokesperson Luisa Rapport in an email to this news organization. “We hope a strike can be avoided, and we also have been doing contingency planning to support continuity of teaching and research in the event of a strike.”
The union’s membership will be able to vote on whether or not to authorize a strike between Oct. 30 and Wednesday, Nov. 6. If the strike is approved by the membership, and if no agreement with the university is reached by that time, the strike would commence on Tuesday, Nov. 12.
Union leaders say that a majority of union members are expected to vote to approve the strike, as a majority of members signed strike pledges in early October. In addition to voting on whether or not to strike, the SGWU’s bargaining committee is putting Stanford’s most recent offer to a vote by the union’s general membership.
According to a press release from the SGWU, the union’s bargaining committee had previously set a deadline of Oct. 24 for Stanford to make a contract offer that was acceptable to the union’s membership, but the university “failed to offer a living wage by this deadline.”
The two parties’ bargaining committees held two more emergency meetings on Oct. 28 and 29, where the union says it made progress on health care, benefits, financial support for international workers and protections against harassment and discrimination, but that the university failed to offer graduate workers a living wage.
In a statement released on Oct. 29, Stanford said its most recent package is a “strong and competitive offer” that includes “top-of-the-market minimum salaries for assistantships relative to (Stanford’s) Ivy League peers.” The university is offering a minimum salary for research assistants and course assistants of $53,148 and a minimum salary of $54,688 for teaching assistants. According to data published by Stanford, this is a higher minimum than its peer universities.
The university released a paper outlining its reasoning for its salary offer. In the paper, Stanford argues that graduate students living on campus only need $48,886 in pre-tax income to cover the cost of attendance. However, the union’s bargaining committee says that the calculation is too low and the university’s offer is not enough to constitute a living wage.
“Stanford’s offer fails to provide the living wage graduate workers deserve, yearly raises that protect against increases in rent and inflation, or backpay to provide workers with a raise this autumn quarter,” said the bargaining committee in its press release.
One of the union’s main grievances with Stanford’s most recent offer is that the university apparently did not offer protections against Stanford-set rent outstripping student worker stipends for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 academic years. The union said this amounts to an effective pay cut for student workers, especially with the current state of inflation.
“Around ~70% graduate workers live in Stanford housing. Stanford is proposing a 2-3% raise in the first year of the contract for the vast majority of graduate workers, while simultaneously raising their on-campus rents by 4.5% this year, their meal plan by 7%, and dependent health care premiums by 10%,” wrote Fletcher Chapin, a member of the bargaining committee, in an email to this news organization. “These figures make it clear that this proposed raise is an effective pay cut for all graduate workers.”
This news organization confirmed that Stanford’s graduate student rental rates have increased by approximately 4.5% by comparing the published 2023-24 room rates to the 2024-25 room rates.
SGWU’s bargaining committee also says that Stanford has backed out of funding commitments to multiple graduate workers over the years, and so it is asking for a five-year funding guarantee in the contract.
“Numerous graduate workers have been failed by Stanford not honoring its funding commitment,” the bargaining committee said in a statement about Stanford’s Oct. 28 contract offer. “Having a funding guarantee in the contract allows the union to conduct meetings and assist graduate workers in making sure that Stanford honors its commitment.”
The union also wants Stanford to offer better transit benefits to graduate students. Stanford’s most recent offer includes a Caltrain GoPass — an unlimited train pass — for a two-year trial period, which the university says is responsive to the union’s asks. However, the bargaining committee says that the GoPass offer carries with it no protections from cancellation if the program price changes. Union members are asking for a guarantee that the GoPass program will not be canceled during the contract period.
The other issue on where the union and university diverge is whether or not fellows should be included in the union.
“Fellows also perform labor for the university, often the same labor as graduate workers on assistantships,” said Chapin. “The research that fellows conduct contributes to the reputation that sustains Stanford. Therefore we have always recognized them as members of SGWU. However, Stanford has repeatedly claimed that fellows are not workers. … We will be taking up the issue of fellows as an organizational fight, even after the contract is ratified.”
The union is encouraging fellows to join in the strike. Stanford’s Oct. 29 statement about the negotiations makes no mention of fellows.
Other issues that remain for the two parties to work out include the level of university coverage for visa application fees for international students, guarantees of timeliness for Title IX complaints and supervisory abusive conduct complaints, the expiry date of the contract, and guarantees that agreed-upon benefits will not change during the length of the contract.
The union is also asking for guaranteed paid parental leave for non-birthing parents. Stanford’s current offer includes one quarter of paid leave for pregnancy and birth.
“There is no deadline for the negotiations to conclude, despite the union’s statements to the contrary,” said Stanford in its Oct. 29 statement. “The university remains constructively engaged at the bargaining table and hopes to reach agreement with the union in a timely way.”
So far, the two parties have reached tentative agreements on 16 items, including union security, university rights, an inclusive work environment, health and safety, grievance procedures and appointment notification. The union’s strike tracker shows a timeline of negotiations and agreements made between the two parties.
“Stanford can avoid a strike at any time by proposing a contract that fully addresses the needs of graduate workers,” said Chapin. “The university has pushed us to this point through stalling and obstinately refusing to move on their wage proposal.”
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