On Nov. 14 on the lawn of Walsh Library at 3 p.m., Fordham’s Graduate Student Workers (FGSW) held a rally calling out the institution’s treatment of its graduate students — a new installment in their multiple-year-long campaign to negotiate a mutual contract with Fordham University.
According to the union, this specific rally is a continuation of the union’s rampant mobilization since they have not met an agreement with the university; similarly, in May this year, a three-day walkout was held during the spring 2023 semester.
The university has engaged with the union’s demands, but according to the union, they have been met with month-long silence or ineffective counters by President Tania Tetlow and Fordham’s bargaining committee.
One main point brought up at the rally was Fordham’s treatment of international graduate students — a fight FGSW has been engaging with the administration since the pandemic. Numerous international graduate students spoke out at the rally about how Fordham’s administration left them to fend for themselves once they arrived in the United States, remarking about dealing with housing security, some even homeless, throughout their time at Fordham whilst having to find a way to juggle teaching and school duties. The speakers claimed Fordham refused to pay these students until they had been given a SSN, leaving many having to rely on the small stipend Fordham for weeks as they cannot legally work anything above the table.
According to FGSW, when the union brought this issue up with the administration, they claimed the housing of internationals was not their responsibility. The university has consistently claimed that they would have to raise student tuition to meet all of the FGSW’s demands.
In an email sent by Tetlow on April 20, the university claimed:
“We understand the desire of every student (and every person) to have a living wage, affordable housing, and free child care. But what we do not understand is the expectation that Fordham, a non-profit and a school, could provide all of this for its own students. Indeed, because we are almost entirely tuition-dependent, the demand presents serious equity issues. It would effectively require us to redirect the tuition dollars paid by undergraduates and other graduate students to provide full, personal financial support for the 360 students represented by this union.”
At the rally, FGSW replied to this point made by the university, claiming that they make enough money to meet their needs with the amount of money the university brings in per semester.
A less focused but still very present part of the rally was the union’s fight to abolish NDAs. FGSW claimed NDAs exist only to protect abusers and silence cases of sexual assault and abuse on campus.
On their website, FGSW said that they are looking to eliminate the “utilization of non-disclosure agreements for cases of harassment and discrimination in order to protect the safety of workers from known threats to workplace safety. [Eliminate] the use of non-disclosure agreements to silence survivors. [Eliminate] the use of non-disclosure agreements to protect sexual harrassers.”
The university has stated that they do not use NDAs in cases of sexual assault.
Multiple grad students at the rally remarked about struggling to raise children due to their salary of $27,000.
A speaker at the rally mentioned having to take out extra student loans to help pay for childcare.
The rally ended around 5 p.m. with a song of worker solidarity, standing with the workers in similar northeastern universities and those abroad.
Currently, they await a meeting with Fordham’s bargaining committee that will determine their next course of action in their fight for a fair contract.
