Grad workers need an avenue to address healthcare needs
Recently, the MIT administration unilaterally decided to permanently close MIT Pharmacy by April 8th. This closing decreases the ability for rapid treatment and leaves students with only external vendors for filling prescriptions - which have higher co-pays with our insurance plan. MIT admin cited low usage during the pandemic and financial risk. However, in 2021, MIT’s endowment grew by 55%, from 18 billion dollars to over a whopping 27 billion dollars. The vast profits in other areas could be used to help address medical needs - with a union we can have a voice.
MIT admin did not solicit feedback on how closing the pharmacy might negatively affect students. Unfortunately, this is one of many examples where graduate workers have no say in our healthcare access and coverage, and how MIT admin prioritizes the bottom line over students’ healthcare. MIT admin has a long history of ignoring our healthcare needs, as well as lowering our existing healthcare access and coverage: denying full dental coverage, retracting health insurance coverage terms leaving grad workers with surprise $4000 bills, doubling emergency room copay, and decreasing MIT urgent care hours.
Your voice matters! A graduate student union will be a democratic organization run and led by you and your fellow grad workers. We can decide our priorities together and ensure the admin hears our needs for health benefits and beyond.
Through channels legally guaranteed by unionization, we can call on the admin to permanently lower external pharmacy co-pays (beyond 2022), decrease deductibles, and decrease out-of-pocket maximums (currently $4000 - which causes extreme financial stress during medical emergencies). We can also establish and widely publicize emergency medical funds for graduate students (like at Harvard’s, Columbia’s, and NYU’s grad unions!)
We can write a union contract that codifies a baseline of compensation and benefits so they cannot be revoked or lowered, while still allowing MIT administration flexibility to offer more at any point during negotiations or the contract period.
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Read more details and graduate student-worker voices below
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MIT admin has a long history of ignoring our healthcare needs, as well as lowering our existing healthcare access and coverage:
MIT admin did not solicit community feedback before or after deciding to close MIT pharmacy, despite how it negatively impacts students.
The administration has ignored graduate student calls for affordable dental insurance for more than two decades, and we lag behind peer institutions with full dental coverage (like University of Michigan, University of Illinois and University of Iowa all with smaller endowments)
This past September, the MIT healthcare plan withdrew previously expanded coverage without notification, leaving grad workers with $4,000 in surprise medical bills.
Five years ago, MIT doubled the copay for emergency room visits outside of MIT Medical to $100 and simultaneously cut MIT Medical Urgent Care hours.
The MIT community’s quality of life and medical benefit should be the main criteria for making changes to medical insurance and facilities - not financial gains. MIT could use its vast endowment and profit in other areas to help address medical needs, especially during a time with such historically high returns from the endowment.
Only a union will provide a legally binding contract so MIT admin cannot freely and unilaterally decrease our healthcare coverage.
Our MIT Graduate Student union will be a democratic organization run and led by you and your fellow coworkers. We know our work and daily struggles best. By standing together, we can ensure that individual perspectives are heard through union reps and that mass graduate worker needs are understood through surveys of our community. Through legally guaranteed meetings and communication channels with the MIT administration, our coworkers we elect to lead our union will be able to ensure the needs and concerns of graduate workers are heard. We can bargain for the graduate students perspective on how MIT’s vast wealth could be used - whether on medical needs, affordable housing, eliminating student fees, higher stipends, or beyond!
Through unionization, grad workers can take collective action to call on MIT admin to:
Permanently extend reduced external pharmacy co-pays to the rates currently offered at MIT Medical
Ensure actual channels of communication to discuss community health concerns with MIT admin
Secure our current medical benefits, ensuring that MIT admin can no longer unilaterally gut our healthcare and access in the future
Decrease the student insurance out-of-pocket maximum - currently it’s $4000 which leaves a lot of financial stress of grad students with medical emergencies. Even the healthiest of us can have accidents causing broken limbs or hospitalization from contracted diseases.
Establish, publicize, expand, and guarantee access to emergency medical funds, like the unions at Harvard, Columbia, and NYU
Notably, a union contract will set the minimum standards for benefits like insurance or funding, but will never set maximums. MIT admin has flexibility on the upper bound at any point.
Admin offered no opportunity for community feedback before or after the MIT Pharmacy decision. Graduate student workers can listen to each other when the admin overlooks our needs. With our union we will have a seat at the table so the admin cannot continue to ignore our voices.
VOTE YES on April 4th and 5th
Sign the vote yes to unionization petition to publicly build the power of our collective voice in bargaining with the MIT administration, ensuring we are taken seriously, respected, and negotiated with in good faith across the issues we care about.
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MIT-GSU is us: grad workers. Through unionizing, we can continue to champion grad worker voices.
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I’M VOTING YES SO MY VOICE IS HEARD
Last summer I was hit by a car while commuting into work on a bike. My eye started swelling and the light sensitivity was so bad that my eye would hurt and water whenever I would pass by bright lights. I was prescribed steroid eye drops that I was able to pick up from MIT pharmacy within 30 min. By the end of the work day, my condition had improved enough that I was able to walk outside to go back home without significant issues. The ease and convenience of having a pharmacy on campus made it so simple for me to seek immediate treatment.
-Nathan Wang, PhD Candidate, Chemical Engineering
I’M VOTING YES SO MY VOICE IS HEARD
I need my medication for a chronic condition. While I luckily live near a CVS, trying to go there within pharmacy hours is a huge hassle for me and affects what hours I can be in the lab to do long techniques. I now am in a conundrum of having to choose between being able to spend time on research or taking care of my health. Additionally, I will have to pay a higher copay after 2022 for my medication which affects my already tight budget. I talked to my physician last week, and she even thought closing the pharmacy was a bad idea. Even the medical professionals at MIT Medical agree the admin should not have decided to close the pharmacy. To me, it is deeply disappointing that the MIT admin does not consider the community’s health a priority.
-Sneha Kabaria, PhD Candidate, Chemical Engineering
I’M VOTING YES SO MY VOICE IS HEARD
Graduate school shouldn’t be a place where only those privileged enough to be able to prioritize their degree over the mental and physical health of themselves and their families can succeed. A union ensures that all graduate workers can experience the structure and benefits necessary to thrive.
-Tayla Levitz, PhD Candidate, Biology