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
Unions Brace For Trump’s Assault On Organized Labor
Take Action NowTrump’s NLRB will likely be filled with lawyers from the union-busting world hell-bent on rolling back workers’ gains.……
The Health Insurance Industry And Legalized Murder
Take Action NowIf the motive for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson is the denial of coverage for essential medical…
Big Oil Has Big Plans For This Trump Administration
Take Action NowInternal documents from AXPC, a powerful fossil fuel trade group, lay out its strategy for demolishing climate policy and…
Why I’m Voting Against The Military Budget
Take Action NowWhile so many Americans struggle to get by, the US is spending record-breaking amounts of money on the military.…