United Campus Workers-CWA Members Fight Against Cuts and for Higher Wages

United Campus Workers-CWA (UCW-CWA) members held actions across the Southeast this month to protest funding cuts and advocate for better treatment and higher wages.

Staff and students joined together at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville for a rally, where UCW-CWA members spoke out about the impact of cuts to research funding, how the current political climate impacts their teaching, and the worries they have for their coworkers with international status. Speaking to WVLT8, UCW-CWA member Olive Fairweather said, “We’re here today because we know these attacks on higher education are not normal. These cuts are costing people their jobs. Things don’t have to be this way; it really makes me wonder what the future of education in East Tennessee is going to look like.”

UCW-CWA members at Auburn University in Alabama held a rally and petition signing to demand better treatment and wages from the university. Their demands included cost-of-living adjustments, raising the university’s minimum wage, increased stipends and lower fees for graduate students, more fair promotions, and subsidies for childcare. After the rally, UCW members marched to Samford Hall and delivered their petition directly to university administrators.

UCW Kentucky member Anika Jensen wrote an op-ed for the Kentucky Lantern, advocating for higher wages for members, saying, “Since United Campus Workers (UCW-CWA) chartered at UK in 2020, administrators have consistently refused to meet with union members, citing the argument that we are an outside organization. We are not. We are just workers, and these are our demands: $25K baseline stipends for all graduate workers by 2025 without cutting teaching assistant or research assistant lines; an end to discriminatory fees for international students; and a long-term plan to continue adjusting stipends to the cost of living.”

In Georgia, Jill Penn, a UCW-CWA member from Georgia Gwinnett College, helped organize a large “Kill the Cuts” rally at Atlanta’s Liberty Plaza. UCW-CWA members from Georgia Tech and Georgia State were joined by other CWA members and Centers for Disease Control and Protection workers impacted by the cuts. At the University of Alabama, UCW members held a “blitz week” with events, a week of tabling on campus, and a rally supporting their Living Wage Campaign.

Other UCW-CWA campuses, including Kennesaw State University, University of Memphis, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, and Mississippi State University, held events including informational tabling, organizing drives, and petition signing.

 
Last week, UCW-CWA members at Mississippi State University, along with members of the Mississippi University for Women, set up an informational table about cuts to higher education funding and asked passersby to post their answers to the question, “What does higher education mean to you?”

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This post originally appeared on cwa-union.org.