Graduate student workers across the country are helping each other unionize.
By Ella Fassler, Truthout
As a first-year master’s student and associate instructor in the School of Music at Indiana University (IU), Chelsea Brinda was forced to sell her blood plasma to survive. Her stipend of just $9,000 was far below Bloomington’s living wage. Eventually, she stopped selling her biofluids, got her first credit card and took out student loans.
Brinda, now a Ph.D. student at IU earning just $16,500 a year for teaching one or two courses a semester, told Truthout that she struggles to balance her own hefty workload as a student with her personal life, the courses she teaches and her part-time job as a COVID tester on campus.
“I feel like I’m shortchanging my students. I’m not giving them the best that I could,” Brinda said. “I’m kind of just going through the motions. I know that if I do try and do better, then it’s going to be a lot more work for myself. That’s not what they’re there for. They don’t deserve that.”
Recent Posts
Leading Papers Call For Destroying Iran To Save It
Take Action Now The opinion pages of the New York Times and Washington Post are offering facile humanitarian arguments for the US to escalate its…
Despite Marco Rubio’s Warnings, This is the Time to Go to Cuba in Solidarity Against the Latest U.S. Aggressions
Take Action Now When visiting Cuba, one can see quickly the terrible effects of the almost seven decades of the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba.By…
“Hands Off Cuba!”: Left Groups in Europe Mobilize Against U.S. Aggression
Take Action Now Hundreds demonstrated in Belgium in solidarity with Cuba as further mobilizations against US imperialism are planned across Europe.……
Democrats Propose Minor Reforms for ICE — and Record Funding
Take Action Now Congressional Democratic leaders are asking ICE to agree to reforms, promising to vote for $11 billion in funding for the agency if…