Faculty Statement on Graduate Worker Unionization Efforts

University of Minnesota graduate workers are currently organizing a union, Graduate Labor Union - United Electrical (GLU-UE), having filed union cards with the Minnesota Bureau of Mediation Services from a majority of the bargaining unit in March. 

Graduate workers are not only indispensable to the the University of Minnesota’s land-grant mission of excellence in research, education, and outreach, but they are likewise essential to the Department of Philosophy and its programs. We, the faculty members of the Department of Philosophy, support the autonomy of graduate workers in our program and those across the University to make their own decisions about unionization. In our roles as instructors, mentors, and advisors to graduate workers, we pledge not to interfere with their deliberations about unionization. 

We trust graduate workers to reach their own conclusions about unionizing.