In May 2018, over two thousand academic student workers went on strike at the University of Washington, the largest strike in the state of Washington in three years. About half of these workers were graduate students in STEM fields, with the other half representing all other academic disciplines. Prior to the strike...
STEM departments remain some of the most abusive, inequitable, and inaccessible workplaces within academia. Rates of bullying are higher in STEM academia than other environments, and when complaints of abuse or harassment against...
We write from a recent hard-won collective organizing campaign, the MIT Graduate Student Union–United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (MIT GSU–UE), to offer a partial reflection of what it entails to organize from within...
As thousands of academic workers in the United States strive to unionize across different university campuses, many organizing campaigns struggle to engage a key demographic: PhD students in STEM departments. Reasons for hesitation among...
On the evening of December 8, 2021, history was made when the University of California system recognized that the majority-STEM UC Student Researchers United-United Auto Workers (SRU-UAW) had won the healthy support of 10,441 out of a...
In recent years, a revived militant left-wing movement has emerged among adjunct and graduate labor within higher education, organizing around low pay, precarious working conditions, and a deskilling of the profession amidst a decline in...
Science academia is under tremendous pressure to change. In the past few years, marginalized groups have called for the opening up of academic institutions, especially to make STEM more accessible to a broader palette of students...
Considering how science has been practiced in the preceding four centuries, it was only a matter of time before scientists began using the revered quantitative methodology to measure their own “success.” In 2005, physicist Jorge Hirsch...
As scientists whose labor has a price, and as activists who seek to build a higher form of society (and of science), we have been compelled to reinforce the frontline of class struggle at our own workplaces.
I’m a STEM worker: a graduate student, trainee, fellow, investigator—whatever the job title may be. As someone who works in a lab, I am expected to work through the weekend and past my contracted hours in the week. I like the idea of...
