BLOOMINGTON— Indiana University’s classes in Bloomington will be disrupted this week after the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition approved a three-day strike.
In a Monday vote, 92.4% of IGWC union members voted in favor of the strike. 646 members voted in favor, while 53 voted against the motion. The strike is set to begin Wednesday around 10 a.m. and last until Friday.
The strike follows previous developments. IGWC held a general membership meeting Sunday, which endorsed calls to strike before all members participated in the vote.
According to IGWC, the strike calls for more competitive pay and benefits, better working conditions, and union recognition.
IGWC previously sent 1,300 union cards to IU President Pamela Whitten, asking the university to host a union election and negotiate with the union to discuss its demands.
This is not the first time the IGWC led a strike. The coalition led a strike in 2022 that led to the university raising the annual minimum salaries for graduate workers from $15,000 to $22,000 and stripped away many of the fees graduate students were expected to pay previously, IGWC said.
IGWC claims that inflation has seen those initial gains plummet, citing the MIT Living Wage Calculator when stating that the living costs for a single person residing in Bloomington currently stand at $41,441.
