Grads Speak Out at Townhall
Grads Speak Out at Townhall
June 29, 2025
Grad workers gathered this past Monday, June 23rd for a townhall hosted by the Dean's Office, meant to provide students a space for addressing questions and concerns. As expected, the outpouring of grievances was met largely with handwaving and noncommittal answers.
When pressed about the possibility of ICE raids on campus, officials gave the same responses we've heard at the bargaining table: some policies limiting ICE presence apparently exist, but the university won't agree to anything in writing. As conversation turned to financial hardship, grads spoke out about the challenges of meeting costs of living, being saddled with debt, and often unable to find a position at the university during their program. At this point, leaders explained that it was a "bad year to be at the bargaining table," and warned that GEO asks for too much. While the union hasn't even proposed economic demands to UIC yet, it is fair and reasonable for our wages to reflect changes in cost of living and changes in the local and national graduate labor market (where union wages are often twice ours.)
But especially troubling were the numerous reports of abusive PIs. The range of complaints, combined with the recent spate of grievances, suggests a much more systematic problem rather than a few bad apples. Supervisor abuse is a growing problem on campus, symptomatic of the intensifying pressure put on grads to produce more for less -- or more accurately, to work for free at risk of delays, discipline, dismissal, or worse. Leadership was quick to direct students to an internal reporting portal, but past experience demonstrates these procedures are neither transparent nor fair and only serve to protect UIC from liability. Only the union can provide a channel for justice based on championing grad workers' interests, rather than burying complaints in endless bureaucracy.
Graduate workers have serious concerns about our pay, working conditions, and unfair supervision. This university simply can't deliver on its public mission if appointments continue to be slashed while discipline cranks up and class sizes swell. If UIC leadership ignores our attempts to communicate our needs through established channels time after time, we'll have no recourse to win what we deserve but collective action: and the burden grads have been forced to bear will become UIC's crisis to resolve.