Graduate Students do a large portion of the teaching and related work at the University of New Mexico. Reporter Austin Fisher, with Source New Mexico, told KUNM’s Kaveh Mowahed that UNM’s 1,500 graduate assistants work with as many as 15,000 undergrads each semester: assisting professors, running labs, and even teaching the same courses full-time instructors teach. Fisher told us why UNM’s grad students are pushing so hard for union representation.
AUSTIN FISHER: The grad students at UNM are trying to addresslow wages, poor benefits, over work and discrimination at their five campuses across New Mexico and they say that if their working conditions improve that there will be fewer systemic barriers to getting an advanced degree. A lot of graduate students who work for the University have children or families and they earn an average of $14,000 per year. The cost of living for a single adult in Albuquerque is $23,000. And this situation can be especially hard for international students at UNM who are here under what are called F1 or J1 visas. These people must obtain permission from an international advisor to work off campus. And according to one union organizer, a lot of the time their spouses aren't allowed to work based on the type of visa that they have. So imagine moving to another country and your spouse isn't even allowed to contribute to your household income.
KUNM: Okay, so when did union organizing start at UNM?
FISHER: The union effort really formally began in December of 2020 when the union filed a petition with the state labor board; there has been sort of informal organizing happening since early 2017.
KUNM: What sort of reaction has the University of New Mexico had?
FISHER: I think the reaction has been resistance at every turn. Between December 2019 and October of 2021, UNM paid a law firm almost $130,000 to fight the union effort. Despite all that spending the New Mexico Public Employee Labor Relations Board overseeing the case has sided with the graduate students at key points during the fight. The board ruled in August that graduate students are public employees and have a right to organize under New Mexico law. It also ordered UNM to begin what's called "card check," where workers sign authorization cards showing whether a majority of them want to form a union.
KUNM: Earlier this month, organized grad students staged sit-in at the school's administrative offices. What was their goal?
FISHER: Well, they started at about 8am that day, and they managed to stay there for about 12 hours. So this building, it's called Scholes Hall on campus, it houses the university's president's office, the legal counsel for the school, the regents offices, provost, various academic vice presidents, and more. And so they wanted to bring their work right into this building, and bring it really close to them and make it really clear to them, "this is the work that we're doing." And one of the union organizers, Hally Bert, said they're occupying the hall on that day to demonstrate the value of their labor. They've tried to approach President Stokes in person, and they tried to sit in the lobby outside her office until she came out. I have not seen any indication that President Stokes came out to meet with them.
KUNM: So there's a next big step for UNM's grad students this week. Tell us about Friday's card counting.
FISHER: This Friday, in the morning, there will be a card count conducted by the state labor board. This is the exact reason why the union filed in December of 2020. If the union's public statements have held true then they're going to win. They have publicly stated multiple times that they have a super-majority of workers from every single department at the University. And this is, I think, a real inflection point for these workers and for the university. It's pretty much the last step, pending any sort of legal appeal, before the university and the students actually have to go to the bargaining table.
KUNM: Thanks for catching us up, Austin. We'll keep following this story and your reporting.
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This segment is part of our #YourNMGov project, a collaboration between KUNM radio and New Mexico PBS. Support for public media provided by the Thornburg Foundation.
