WHO

On February 8th 2023, a Consent Election Agreement was signed by both parties that defined our bargaining unit to the MA Department of Labor Relations.

All UMassD grad students getting paid through the university should be able to join, and be protected by, our union.

ELIGIBILITY

We petitioned that every UMassD grad student who performs research, teaching, and/or administrative work as a paid employee through the university should be eligible to join our union. Eligibility should be regardless of the funding source, contract hours per week, and hourly vs. salary/stipend pay structure.

To be clear, this definition also includes summer employees and hourly grad workers, which is unprecedented in UMass union history! It is a huge win that our union will protect these categories.

Though the Consent Election Agreement in February (see below) redefined the bargaining unit from what we had petitioned to the DLR in December, we maintain that the substance of the bargaining unit definition is unchanged.

Note: If you work for Dining Services or if you are a post-doc, you are already unionized (and therefore aren't eligible to join our union). Undergraduate students also aren't eligible to join our union (feel free to start one for the undergrad workers!).

POPULATION

After over 1 year of asking every possible person in every possible way, and finally thanks to the DLR subpoena, we finally know how many grad workers are at UMassD!

There are 389 graduate student employees at UMass Dartmouth this Spring 2023 semester. Here's the breakdown:

DEFINITION

On February 8th 2023, the university and the AFT (our union) signed a Consent Election Agreement defining the bargaining unit as follows:

All University of Massachusetts Dartmouth graduate students with a student registration status of Graduate and Active in Program employed by the University of Massachusetts in the following categories: Teaching Assistant, Teaching Fellow, Instructional Assistant, Studio Assistant, Clinical Assistant, Research Assistant, Distinguished Doctoral Fellow, Distinguished Art Fellows, Doctoral Fellow, Graduate Researcher, Graduate Assistant, and hourly paid graduate students appointed for a minimum of one semester; and excluding all other graduate students and all other managerial, confidential, casual, and other employees.

CONSENT ELECTION AGREEMENT

SCR 22-9738 Agreement - Approved.pdf