Graduate Workers Occupy UW Administration Building to Demand Fair Workplace Policies

More than 400 graduate workers and allies gathered at Bascom Hall on April 5. This action is to demand from university administrators a living wage, full fee relief, quality policies, and a role in decision-making that affects graduate employees. Participants included teaching assistants, research assistants, project assistants, lecturers, professional students, and other graduate workers from more than a hundred departments on campus.

Graduate workers discussed the history of segregated fees and international student fees, and the timeline of the long-awaited Graduate Assistants Policies and Procedures (GAPP) handbook. They shared stories of hardship under the burden of thousands of dollars in mandatory fees and the experiences with hostile, inconsistent policies.

TAA stands in solidarity with graduate workers at other universities, who are at this moment organizing and taking collective action to improve their working conditions — and winning. At the University of Illinois Chicago, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Northwestern University show a rising wave of graduate labor unions who have demonstrated so clearly that when we stand together, we get the goods.

For more information, you can

Read our press release.

Read stories about our button campaign and mandatory fees.

Read media coverage about the sit-in.