The Stanford Graduate Workers Union (SGWU) announced a tentative agreement with the University Wednesday, citing “transformative gains” in financial security on campus, and urged union members to ratify the contract.
The tentative agreement successfully averted a strike — which could disrupt classes and slowdown grading — that was set to begin Wednesday morning. The week-long ratification ballot is set to launch on Saturday.
The agreement announced on Wednesday includes a wage increase, unprecedented funding guarantee for Ph.D. students and harassment and discrimination protections. The bargaining negotiations, which began a year ago, come amid a surge in graduate workers union organization across the country.
Most graduate workers will receive a 4.75% raise effective fall 2024 if this contract is ratified, with a range from 4.5% to 6.78% depending on current salary. This wage increase falls shy of the union’s Thursday demand of a 14% increase for this academic year and subsequent raises in the next two years, but rises above the University’s proposal of a 4.5% raise — which union representatives claimed was “not nearly enough” — the day prior.
“We strongly believe we deserve a higher wage than Stanford was willing to agree to, but we also believe that this is the best overall economic package we can secure without a potentially bitter and protracted strike, given their strong reticence on wages,” the bargaining committee wrote.
If the contract is ratified, graduate workers would receive a minimum annual stipend of $54,052, which will increase to $56,348 next fall and $58,460 by 2026. Whereas the stipend is among the highest nationwide, the pay raise in Stanford’s tentative agreement trails wage increase offers secured by graduate worker unions at many peer universities.
After unionizing, workers at Brown University saw a 7.75% base stipend increase during the first year of their contract, while Northwestern workers secured a 10% raise and UChicago workers saw a 21% raise. However, the proposed first-year pay raise for Stanford graduate workers exceeds Harvard’s 3% raise.
If union members choose to vote down the proposed contract, the committee wrote it “is prepared to lead the strike that we will be mandated to take on.” The bargaining committee “unanimously and strongly endorses a vote of yes” to accept the tentative contract, emphasizing that the contract “is only just the beginning” in a multi-year process of bargaining.
In a move not matched by any U.S. higher education institutions, according to the bargaining committee, Stanford has also published campus rent for the following two school years and guaranteed that graduate workers’ wages will increase at a rate no lower than rent. SGWU also won “groundbreaking improvements on harassment and discrimination protections,” they wrote in their email. These include protections against abusive conduct by supervisors, as well as requiring Stanford to allow a union representative to accompany any graduate worker to investigatory interviews in all cases of discrimination, harassment and power abuse.
Ph.D. students will also receive a five-year funding guarantee, meaning that Ph.D. students cannot have their funding cut off by failure to secure grants or fellowships. This agreement also allows Ph.D. students to request a meeting “to ensure they get the funding promised to them or to take steps to remedy any academic issues.”
Other benefits outlined in the contract include a one-time lump sum of $1200 to international Ph.D. workers to cover visa and other government fees, as well as providing a CalTrain GoPass to commuting graduate workers for the duration of the contract.
“This tentative agreement came through the dedicated efforts of both bargaining teams and many long hours of discussion at the negotiating table,” the University wrote in a statement on its graduate worker unionization website, which University spokesperson Luisa Rapport referred The Daily to. “We thank the members of both bargaining committees for their efforts in reaching this agreement.”
Currently, fellows are not included in the bargaining unit and do not have “contractual access to the same protections that other graduate workers have” through the union, despite SGWU advocacy. The bargaining committee wrote “the reality is that fellows inclusion is legally ambiguous terrain that Stanford dug its heels into.” The committee wrote it “will continue these fights until they are won.”