Members of the Graduate Student Employees Union (GSEU) at Binghamton University marched across campus Wednesday, joining protests on campuses across the state.
The union represents all teaching and graduate assistants at State University of New York (SUNY) campuses.
Union members are calling on the university system to agree to their contract demands and speed up the negotiation process. The union’s contract expired in 2023, and has been under negotiation for over a year.
The union recently presented a package of economic requests during negotiations, including a minimum pay floor of $40,059 for upstate schools. The union is also demanding SUNY allow graduate student workers to seek additional work outside their university jobs, which they are currently often not permitted to do.
Camille Gagnier, president of the union’s Binghamton chapter, said currently, the average graduate student at Binghamton makes around $20,000 dollars per year. She said some students make as little as $11,000.
“You're also pursuing your degree at the same time. So you're expected not to work another job,” Gagnier said. “You have to live on that $11,000.”
Gagnier said many graduate students are overworked and don’t have savings to draw on. She said some have families to support, and the prolonged contract negotiations have only made things more challenging.
“We've been bargaining for a year at this point and we don't have much to show for it,” Gagnier said. “Meanwhile, our wages are languishing. They were already insultingly low before our contract expired, and it's just getting all the more dire by the day.”
She said at this point, graduate students are waiting for SUNY officials to respond to the union’s demands.
“We're just hoping to speed the process along so that people who are waiting and falling deeper and deeper into debt, burning out from financial worries, we can get them relief as soon as possible,” Gagnier said. “Because we're really overdue for this new contract.”
During Wednesday's protest, graduate workers attempted to deliver a petition to Binghamton university leadership, calling on SUNY to speed up negotiations. However, the administrative building was locked and guarded by security.
In response to the protest, university spokesperson Ryan Yarosh said the university understands the financial burdens grad students face, and has invested $2.9 million to increase PhD stipends and scholarships.
“Binghamton University is proud of and recognizes the important contributions our graduate students make to campus,” Yarosh wrote in a statement. “However, as with all collective bargaining agreements the university is not a direct party to the negotiations between the GSEU and SUNY.”
SUNY declined to comment on the protest or negotiations.
“SUNY is actively at the table with the State and our GSEU/CWA students to negotiate a new contract,” a SUNY spokesperson wrote in a statement. “While these ongoing discussions take place, we will not comment further.”
The next contract bargaining session will be held on February 12, 2025.