Mizzou graduate students sue over unionization

After a school year of protests, negotiations and voting, a graduate student group sued the University of Missouri to recognize their union.

The Coalition of Graduate Workers filed suit Wednesday in Boone County circuit court against the school system’s Board of Curators. The group, aiming to represent the 2,692 graduate assistants on the Columbia campus, wants the University to recognize those student workers as employees, and grant them to right to collectively bargain with school administration.

CGW held a vote in April on the issue of unionization. 84 percent of those that cast a vote favored the plan, but Mizzou administration has yet to formally recognize the union. At issue is the question of whether graduate students qualify as “employees” under state law.

Joe Moore called last August’s decision to end graduate student health insurance subsidies a “callous” one by the school’s administration. Graduate assistants pay taxes on the money they make, work as Title IX reporters and perform a variety of duties similar to that of employees. That should allow the graduate assistants to collectively bargain for a contract, similar to what public employees like school teachers are allowed.

“When somebody, one particular group gets denied their rights, it makes it that much easier for other people to have their rights denied,” Moore said about the importance of the case. “And we feel that our constitutional right to collectively bargain is being denied.”

Attorney Sally Barker of St. Louis represents the graduate workers in the case. The petition cites state constitution’s guarantee for public employees “to ‘organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing,'” along with a 2007 state Supreme Court case involving teachers in Independence. Graduate students receive a stipend for their work as well as subsidized health insurance, among other benefits. The petition said University administration denied CGW’s “request for recognition and commencement of bargaining” on May 6.

School spokesman Christian Basi told ABC 17 News the school would raise stipends for graduate workers and doctoral students the next two years. He also mentioned that the school was working on different fronts to provide new graduate student housing, two years after the loss of University Village and the Student Parent Center.

Moore, though, felt promises would best be left to a signed contract, calling the entire situation “unnecessary.”

“The University could have voluntarily chosen to recognize the results of a democratic election and recognize our union and began the process of collective bargaining. They chose not to, under the pretext that they’re not sure we’re workers.”

UM System spokesman John Fougere did not return a message seeking comment. However, the system often does not comment on pending litigation.