Chants and picket signs flooded the University of Iowa’s Pentacrest on Wednesday. A demonstration organized by the Campaign to Organize Graduate Students, or COGS, represented the group’s latest efforts to increase wages for campus workers.
“I’m both incredibly frustrated and incredibly heartened,” Greg Wickenkamp, the press coordinator for COGS, said. “I’m really frustrated by the university’s unwillingness to pay its workers what we deserve. I’m heartened by the turnout today, and I think the momentum for COGS is only growing.”
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About 50 people were at the Pentacrest by noon. Leaders of the demonstration spoke on a megaphone outlining their message to UI President Barbara Wilson and the Iowa Board of Regents: increase graduate worker wages by 25 percent.
The demonstration was the most recent in a long line of protests organized by COGS. Starting at the UI in 1993, COGS is a union representing about 2,000 graduate students advocating for a variety of issues impacting their base. Last year, the union held multiple events promoting an end to student fees.
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This most recent demonstration, entitled “Campus Workers’ Rally for a Real Raise,” is the first demonstration by the group this semester, and it was aimed at increasing wages for workers amid rising costs of living and wages that are near the bottom compared to other Big Ten universities.
COGS members began marching to Jessup Hall around 12:30 p.m. and gathered outside Wilson’s office. Chants such as “education is a right, not just for the rich and white” and “the university works because we do” could be heard echoing down the halls of Jessup.
Iowa City City Council candidate Oliver Weilein was also in attendance. Weilein told The Daily Iowan livable wages and reducing the costs of living, particularly for housing, is something he wants to tackle if he’s elected to the council.
“I know what it’s like to struggle to be a low-income worker. I know what it’s like to be a renter in Iowa City. I know what it’s like to have been on countless pickets,” Weilein said. “I think that perspective on city council could be absolutely beneficial to the city.”
Postcards, coffee, and croissants were passed among members while inside Jessup. COGS members wrote their grievances with Wilson and their wages and delivered them to her. COGS President Cary Stough read aloud a letter the organization wrote to Wilson demanding the 25 percent wage increase.
“The current pay for campus workers has fallen far below what we deserve,” a Sunday press release from COGS read. “If the Regents plan to offer the legal minimum in contract negotiations next month, campus workers are facing an effective pay cut. This is a disgrace to both our University and the Regents that oversee us!”
COGS advocated for a wage increase in February 2023. At that time, COGS requested a 10 percent wage increase, along with additional benefits such as parental leave, free parking, and access to safe working conditions and equipment.
The Iowa Board of Regents approved a 3 percent salary increase for graduate union workers.
According to UI Human Resources, the minimum wage at the UI is $8.20, which is the second lowest among Big Ten schools. Employers pay 100 percent of the wage for student part-time hourly employees. COGS members are paid a salary of $21,969 for an appointment lasting half the academic year and $26,841 for an appointment lasting 50 percent of a fiscal year.
The UI Graduate College reports half of graduate students work on average 20 hours a week with 25 percent working 10.
RELATED: UI graduate student union continues demand to end student fees
While the cost of living in Iowa City is lower than in other parts of the country by more than 7 percent, a single adult’s livable wage in Iowa City is $20.24 per hour, according to data from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Vice President of COGS Jenny Singer said the low wages the UI offers are discouraging to not only herself but prospective graduate students looking to enroll in the university.
“I got into other graduate programs that would have paid me more money and required me to work. I was so excited about the program that was offered and the professors,” Singer said. “Now, if I were talking to a prospective graduate worker and student, I would tell them to think really carefully about coming here.”
Singer said working a second job to make ends meet is a common experience among graduate students at the UI.
“The chances that they’re going to end up coming and having to take a second job and not getting to focus on the work and the studies that they’re going to do are really high,” Singer said.
COGS says they are going to meet next Thursday, Feb. 6 in the Iowa Memorial Union with lawyers from the Board of Regents to discuss increasing their wages.
“It feels like they’re saying to the people of Iowa, the education of these students really doesn’t matter,” Singer said. “We just want to save a couple of bucks, and we want the president to intervene and say, ‘education really does matter here,’ and ‘we’re going to pay our workers like it.’”