The Campaign To Organize Graduate Students (COGS) writes in response to remarks made by a bargaining unit member, Patrick Bigsby, in a panel discussion with Madeleine Elfenbein on graduate employees and unionization. Above all, we invite Bigsby to voice his concerns at any of our monthly general membership meetings (likewise for any bargaining unit member). We also express our solidarity with Elfenbein’s union, Graduate Students United, and we appreciate Elfenbein’s informed and compelling defense of graduate employee unionization. But we consider three of Bigsby’s claims – his “three principal objections [to joining COGS]” – very misleading.
The first claim is “[COGS’ contract] mandates that all graduate employees…are paid the same amount…” This is untrue: COGS’ contract, whose terms are online, requires that the university pay at least the minimum salary (Art. IX, Sec. 2). Departments can and do pay more than the contractual minimum. Some graduate employees make over $22,000, which is $4,000 more than the contractual minimum. A few (too few) make about $27,400. COGS’ hard-fought contract does not “mandate” lower salaries for any graduate employee. Nor does it require identical salaries for all graduate employees. COGS’ contract in fact imposes salary increases, including a three-percent salary increase this upcoming year. And COGS will fight for increases in future years, as we have done for the past twenty years.
The second claim is “[COGS] devotes far too much time to student issues, rather than worker issues. The union purports to represent my interests as an employee, but then proceeds to fight tooth-and-nail to reduce student fees…” But in fighting for fees reductions and salary increases, we are placing money right into Bigsby’s pocket. Fee reductions and salary increases are increases in compensation, and as Bigsby says, “…I’m in it for the compensation”, his assertion that COGS do not “represent [his] interests” is inconsistent with his stated interest in money. Moreover, the distinction of one’s “employee” status and one’s “student” status is simply indefensible. If we have low pay, high tuition, and no health insurance – as was our lot before COGS – then our research and grades will likely suffer. If we are billed over $1,000 in fees each year, then our salary is less competitive. The regents are of course apt to stress one role when convenient: they say graduate employees should have neither tuition coverage nor fee coverage while graduate students should have neither salary increases nor health insurance. The regents forget that the student and the employee are the same person. It falls to COGS – and sometimes to the courts – to remind them that human beings are not so simply split. And Bigsby admits this: “They’re certainly correlated insofar as I wouldn’t be one if I weren’t the other…” So we serve both graduate students and graduate employees when we fight against student fees.
The third claim is “[COGS is] very politically active.” While COGS does not fund political candidates or parties, COGS does support Iowa Democrats. There are good reasons for this. Iowa House Republicans, at Governor Branstad’s urging, voted uniformly in 2011 to eliminate public employee unions’ collective bargaining rights. The current platform of the Iowa Republican Party also reads, “We call for legislation that would eliminate all public sector unions.” We oppose such legislation because it would kill COGS. We will not support any politician whose party calls for COGS’ destruction as a ‘cost-saving’ measure. Such ‘cost-savings’ would come at the painful expense of public sector workers like us by stripping away our benefits – our modest salary, our employer-subsidized health insurance, our full tuition coverage, and our partial fee reductions. One legislative act can undo all of COGS’ hard-fought gains over the past twenty years. Only Iowa Senate Democrats prevent Iowa Republicans from doing this. So Iowa Democrats have COGS’ gratitude and support. COGS is not opposed to the Iowa Republican party, but to its concerted and live effort to destroy us. This is why COGS is “very politically active”: political quietism is not open to us. Political activity is necessary for COGS’ survival: we would be nihilistic not to help Iowa Democrats who oppose a bill that would end us, and amnesic to support Iowa Republicans given their repeated and ongoing efforts to end us.
Landon D. C. Elkind, on behalf of COGS’ Coordinating Committee
