Fellows Work!

Fellows may join our union by paying voluntary dues, but MIT denies them the contractual protections afforded to RAs and TAs. During unionization, MIT expended significant resources to exclude Fellows by litigating the scope of the bargaining unit and persuading the National Labor Relations Board that Fellows do not do work. That ruling does not legally prohibit MIT from including Fellows, however. The Institute retains full legal authority to voluntarily recognize Fellows under the collective bargaining agreement at any time.

Join your coworkers in signing our petition to include Fellows in our union and sign up to become a member of our union here!

If MIT recognizes Fellows, they would be entitled to the same contract rights and benefits currently held by RAs, TAs, and Instructor Gs. Your benefits would also be guaranteed from semester to semester when switching between RA/TA/IG and fellow appointments. There would no longer be one group of workers arbitrarily receiving fewer benefits, which will allow us to fight for even stronger protections together in the future.

Currently, MIT has set up a two-tier system by excluding Fellows from our contract. The rights, benefits, and working conditions of Fellows are all under MIT’s discretion. Although MIT has historically extended some of our contract protections to Fellows, Fellows do not enjoy ALL of the rights and protections as your RA and TA coworkers, who often perform the same work. Additionally, any benefits that are currently extended to Fellows are not guaranteed and could change at any time. For instance, some departments have started to pay Fellows less than their RA/TA counterparts, and Fellows do not get the full 70% T-Pass subsidy. In addition to this, MIT has created the “Teaching Fellow” position to effectively exclude many TAs from the bargaining unit. 

If MIT recognizes Fellows as part of our union, Fellows will be included under our legally enforceable contract. This means that all students paid through fellowship would enjoy the same rights and benefits as our RA/TA counterparts. It would also eliminate the arbitrary situation in which one group of workers receives fewer benefits or has fewer workplace rights.

It is easy to imagine that Fellows may never need the full support of our contract, but any one of us can face unexpected adversity. Being covered by our contract formalizes the protections grad workers may need to lean on at a moment’s notice.

All graduate workers can sign the Fellows petition to show MIT that we stand united as RAs, TAs, and Fellows alike in supporting a union for all of us here at MIT!

So much is possible when we stand united to improve our working conditions. We are stronger together, and will be even stronger without artificial divisions separating Fellows from RAs/TAs into two tiers.

As we have seen in previous campaigns, petitions can motivate MIT to move on issues. 

Before we even had our union, MIT graduate workers organized around the mental health crisis on campus, launching a petition that was signed by over 1200 students. Because of this effort, we were able to win the free, weekly therapy sessions which are now part of our health insurance plan.

A petition shows MIT that we are ready and organized – that we collectively want Fellows to be part of the bargaining unit – and that Fellows deserve the rights and guarantees given to our coworkers in our labs and cohorts. Join us in signing the petition now!

Inclusion of Fellows in graduate union contracts is not new. At several campuses, such as at the University of California and Dartmouth, it is actually the standard! 

UAW 4811, the union that represents thousands of graduate workers across the University of California schools, has fellows included in their bargaining unit, and recently won a settlement to ensure that students on internal fellowships during their first year to do lab rotations are also included in the bargaining unit. At Dartmouth (UE Local 261) Fellows have been included in their bargaining unit since their first contract. Nothing about the structure of graduate employment precludes MIT from guaranteeing broader contract rights and benefits.