The following press release was sent to the Bloomingtonian Monday night by the Indiana Grad Workers Coalition:
“Response to Task Force on Graduate Education
18 April 2022
Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition
[email protected] www.indianagradworkers.org
In response to the newly-formed task force on the future of graduate education at IU:
IGWC-UE finds it strange that Provost Shrivastav is creating a new task force for graduate education while ignoring all currently existing mechanisms of graduate student input. Hundreds of graduate workers are on the picket lines demanding a meeting with the Provost every day. He ignores them. IGWC-UE represents 1,750 of the 2,500 graduate workers on campus and Provost Shrivastav refuses to even dialogue with our organization.
While the union advocates for moving tuition money and endowment donations into the classroom, the Provost protects high-paid administrators.
The Graduate and Professional Student Government voted 60 to 0 in favor of unionization. The Provost refuses to act on this fact or even acknowledge it, all the while telling the press and the public that he listens to the GPSG. The Provost has never invited the GPSG President Valentina Luketa to meet with him. He has never acted on one resolution passed by the GPSG nor has he ever met or conferred with that body over any issues whatsoever.
At its last meeting, the Bloomington Faculty Council voted to support graduate worker unionization and the right of graduate workers to strike without fear of retaliation. The Provost, in his actions and words, has contradicted this important resolution. We are proud that so many faculty have refused to side with his extreme anti-union methods which undermine the education we all seek to provide.
We ask the Provost to stop lying about listening to the GPSG. He does not listen. We ask the Provost, in the name of shared governance, how will he enact the recent BFC resolution? We ask the Provost once and for all, to meet with the IGWC-UE, the organization that represents graduate workers at Indiana University.
Graduate workers already have plenty of ways to express themselves at Indiana University. We are doing it vigorously with each passing day. The question is: Why won’t the Provost listen?”
