Protest in Fairbanks, led by Alaska Graduate Workers Association

FAIRBANKS, Alaska - On Monday, April 29, a protest organized by the Alaska Graduate Workers Association took place in both Anchorage and Fairbanks., a large, international union. That same year, graduate student workers began the formal process of unionizing. Two years later and after much deliberation, AGWA was formed when a vote to unionize passed.

With both parties seeking to ratify a contract before the end of the legislative session, bargaining has moved fast having started only about three months ago. According to Jonathan Taylor, the director of public affairs for the UA system, first time contracts take about 450 days to ratify but interest from the AGWA and UA have helped move things along. Still, AGWA remains dissatisfied with the lack of progress and in late March they voted to go on strike.

Unable to strike and frustrated with a lack of progress with negotiations, AGWA instead organized a protest during which they marched to different areas of the UAF campus chanting about wages, finalizing a contract and the administrations unwillingness to face the union. There are also growing concerns centered around failing to ratify the contract during the current legislative session.

As to the other issues involved in the contract; pay, healthcare and the at-will employment status of the union workers round out the union’s top three concerns. As for pay, UA “is just bargaining to get $26 for masters students $28 for PHD students,” said Isabel Olazar, a graduate student employee at UAF. As she explained however, the union considers this to still be too low because those wages are not competitive with other universities that are similar to UAF.

UAF UAA UA University Of Alaska University Of Alaska Fairbanks University Of Alaska Anchorage UAW United Auto Workers Brent Bennett Rabinowitz Courthouse Fairbabks Anchorage Union Contract Legislative Session Legislature Isabel Olazar Maxwell Plichta Soumitra Sakhalkar Jonathan Taylor Wages Healthcare Travel PHD Masters Graduate Students Undergraduates Sit-In

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