Graduate Student Voices

                        OUR MISSION

We, the members of Graduate Student Voices at Iowa State University, recognize that it is our right to organize for the benefit and protection of our workforce.  Members of the community of graduate students, graduate student employees, and graduate student professional workers have the right to fair and humane working conditions.  Those rights include but are not limited to: 

• Cultural and financial recognition of the value of our labor and the essential contributions we make to the University.

• Health care that appropriately addresses our specific circumstances as a diverse community of graduate students, including older students, students with physical and mental disabilities, students with children and/or other dependents, and students with any life circumstances that may differ from the most common situations of undergraduate students, faculty and staff.

• A living wage that includes full tuition waivers for all graduate students and guaranteed income and benefits through the 12-month calendar year.

• A work culture free from aggression, bullying, harassment, discrimination, exploitation, and inappropriate expectations regarding working hours and work-life balance.  Essential elements of a fair and respectful work culture include but are not limited to:

  • An effective grievance procedure that addresses abuses of power against graduate students by University faculty, staff, and/or administrative personnel.  This grievance procedure must include mechanisms for holding accountable those who have abused their power.

  • Specific protections for international graduate students, who can be especially vulnerable to abuses of power.

Graduate students are an essential part of the University workforce; without graduate student labor the University would cease to function.  Our rights in the workplace must be commensurate with the responsibilities given to us.  As a community united we are stronger together than we are as individuals--better able to support each other and advocate for our rights as laborers at the University.  We identify with the international labor movement and therefore commit ourselves to aggressively advocating for workers’ rights and democratic control over our working conditions.