“The university works because we work,” members of COGS chanted as they rallied outside the Iowa Memorial Union on Thursday. The Campaign to Organize Graduate Students, to use the union’s full name, represents the graduate student workers at the University of Iowa. Members teach most of the general education courses UI offers to undergraduates.
On Thursday, COGS met with representatives of the Iowa Board of Regents at the IMU for the first public session in the negotiations for a new contract covering 2025-2027.
Based on a survey of almost 2,000 UI graduate student workers, COGS entered the meeting with three basic demands: a 25 percent raise to bring graduate student workers closer to a living wage for Johnson County, a change to the pay schedule for the month of August and paid time-off shifting from a matter of university policy to part of COGS’s contract.
Paid time-off used to be part of the standard contracts for graduate student workers at UI. But after the Republicans in the Iowa Legislature pushed through a bill gutting collective bargaining rights for all public sector workers — except police officers and firefighters — public entities like the Board of Regents are only required to negotiate with unions over pay. Paid time-off was dropped from the contract, but kept as a matter a university policy. The downgrade to policy means the UI administration can change it anytime, and COGS members have no legal recourse if they feel their supervisors are violating the leave policy.
Likewise, adjusting the August pay schedule is not something the regents have to negotiate, but it’s important to graduate student workers. Graduate student workers are paid monthly and the first paycheck at the beginning of the university’s academic year is in August. But the checks come at the end of the month, after graduate students have already had to pay university fees for the semester. This is an even bigger issue for new graduate students workers who have already incurred the expenses of moving to Iowa City, and then working for a month without receiving a paycheck.
As has been the case since collective bargaining rights were largely eliminated eight years ago, the regents’ initial contract offer only involved a pay raise — but not the 25 percent increase COGS demanded. The regents offered a 3 percent annual increase for both years of the contract. That is half-a-percent above the minimum 2.5 percent increase the regents were required to offer.
“This proposal is very similar to what you’ve seen in past years, except we are coming out, as I noted, that the requirement would be 2.5 percent as a requirement,” Micheal Calloway, the attorney representing the regents in the negotiations, told the COGS negotiators. “We are not doing that. The Board of Regents is proposing a 3 percent each year for a total of 6 percent.”
“Of course, it’s not nearly enough, it’s not anywhere close to the 25 percent we were asking for,” Jacob Payne, a member of the COGS negotiating team told Little Village. “And even 25 percent is not enough over the next two years to get us to a living wage for Johnson County. We’re disappointed that they are coming in that low.”
“On the other hand, given what we’ve seen at other negotiating sessions this winter, we weren’t even expecting them to come in even that high,” Payne, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, added.
Two years ago during negotiations for the current contract, the regents only offered the minimum required amount.
“So this does feel like we’re seeing some motion on their side,” Payne said. “There’s some response, even if its really, really minimal. It feels like we’ve moved them a non-zero amount, which feels really good.”
During the meeting COGS presented a chart showing that UI ranks 16th among the 18 universities in the Big Ten in terms of pay for graduate student workers. Only the University of Nebraska and Purdue University pay their graduate students workers less than the minimum of $21,969 that UI pays graduate teaching assistants.
Calloway said the regents aren’t interested in the comparison to other Big Ten schools. The regents claim the cost of living in Iowa City is so much lower than the other college towns that the comparison isn’t meaningful.
“I think that’s pretty spurious,” Greg Wickencamp, a COGS member who is working on a Ph.D. in History, told Little Village. “Two of the universities that have higher graduate worker pay are Indiana and Illinois. Indiana is certainly not more exorbitantly expensive in terms of cost of living than Iowa City.”
“And while Iowa as a state may have lower cost of living than many states, Iowa City is right on par with many other university towns in the Big Ten.”
More than 80 COGS members attended the public negotiating session, packed into the room on third floor of the IMU and waiting outside it. Wickencamp said he was heartened by the turnout.
“We’re growing our membership, and we’re positioning ourselves to make more adamant demands” he said.
The next step in negotiations will be a closed-door session later this month. The date of the session is still to be determined.
