There are some ploys that non-university employers use to defeat unionization that won’t work with grad students. First, while Amazon may be able to convince its workers that they’ll lose their jobs if they vote for a union, that’s a little harder to do at, say, Harvard, where the thousands of teaching and research assistants aren’t easily replaceable. Second, the latest Gallup poll showed that fully 77 percent of people aged 18-34, the cohort encompassing the age range of grad student workers, have a favorable view of unions. These combined factors create significant momentum for unionizing.
The Union of Autoworkers and Grad Students
