An overview of graduate student activism at Hopkins

BY SHIRLENE JOHN, News and Features Editor

“For those of us who have been around since the earlier days, the last six months have been pretty surreal — especially to go from a series of years in which the hope that we were going to win the union started to fade to then, suddenly, there was a super majority of people on campus who were signing union cards,” he said.

“We knew that, despite the fact that we were running the institution together with faculty members, we didn’t really have a voice in this decision, which

“We realized that we needed a body that would be distinct from the University-funded and supported bodies,“ she said. “The decisions would be taken by graduate students, and that was how the idea of starting a graduate student union emerged.” various issue-based campaigns, including one for better health care for graduate students that they won in 2018. wanting to reach the most diverse range of people in the instittion,” she said.

Agarwal highlighted how this campaign built trust among graduate students, as they started believing that the union could improve their working conditions.

“We realized that people were angry and we were trying to channel that anger into something constructive, like an issue campaign that resonated with people deeply and that would actually structurally change the very inequitable balance of power,” she said.

Agarwal similarly detailed how organizing brought graduate students across departments together.

“People were very nervous about [organizing],” she said. “The health care campaign was monumental in organizing, talking to people, listening to them about their fears, addressing their fears and giving them a concrete way in which they could see that ‘I can do something’ to participate in improving graduate students’ conditions.’” coverage, to their health insurance plans in 2018.

“We do that by forming a union and institutionalizing our role in shaping our working conditions.”

She stressed that unions have a broader role than simply raising the wages of workers.

“Not every member of TRU-UE agrees perfectly on all of these issues or feels the exact same way politically about all of them,” she said. “What’s important is that we’ve created a space for a dialogue on those issues and for thinking through how we can transform the way that the University is run.”

“All that organizing requires is that you have a vision, a clear campaign strategy and a group of people that is willing to do the work and put the hard hours in to move people and win” she said.