_EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a letter to the editor written by a member of the MU community who is not part of The Maneater’s staff. It is not the opinion of The Maneater or its editorial board. In accordance with our letters policy, we publish every letter submitted to us barring personal attacks or hate speech; we welcome responses to this and everything we publish via a letter or in our comments section._

On Labor Day, in the wake of weeks of administration-caused healthcare crisis and a mass graduate worker rally, the Forum on Graduate Rights announced its endorsement of an election on union representation. Following this announcement, we, as chairs of FGR’s Organizing Committee, officially launched the Coalition of Graduate Workers, our campaign for a graduate worker union.

The issues faced by MU’s graduate workers matter to the entire MU community, including undergraduate students and their families. Graduate workers provide the majority of individually focused teaching at MU, meaning that our well-being has a direct impact on undergraduate education. Similarly, graduate workers conduct research in programs across the campus, and our work is fundamental to the standing and reputation of our university. But graduate workers do not receive adequate compensation for their contributions. MU’s minimum compensation is $12,100 on a nine-month, half-time contract; in contrast, a living wage for a single person in Boone County is — according to the MIT Living Wage calculator — an after-tax income of $18,102. Many graduate workers on quarter-time appointments are living well below the state and federal poverty lines. Undergraduates at MU deserve a world-class education, and the citizens of this state deserve a world-class research institution. But these goals can’t be achieved while graduate workers are being paid starvation wages.

The crisis over healthcare — which was a systemic failure of decision making, not the failure of any one administrator — finally pushed graduate students to action. But our grievances have a deeper history than just the university’s disastrous handling of our health insurance. Graduate worker and graduate student crises have occurred on an annual basis due to lack of adequate state funding and the mistaken budgetary priorities of university administrators. Sweeping, unilateral cost-cutting missions by the university have tried to shutter the University Press, left graduate housing in a decrepit state, removed student childcare, stored library books in damp, moldy caverns, slashed tuition waivers for quarter-time students, and, most recently, left graduate workers scrambling for new health insurance at the eleventh hour. These decisions strike at our personal security, as well as the security of our families. Certainly they reflect poorly on the value of an MU degree.

The welfare of graduate workers matters for Missouri families and MU undergraduates. We know unions are a contentious issue in this state and this nation. Lawmakers, big-money campaign donors and Missouri unions are currently in a legislative dogfight over Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto of so-called ‘right-to-work’ legislation. Missouri is in a crucial moment where we’ll decide the future of our state’s working families. That’s what makes our campaign so important. Our fight isn’t just a fight for ourselves, or just for the University of Missouri. It’s a fight for the right of working Missourians to secure a better future for themselves and for their children.

_— Connor Lewis and Eric Scott, co-chairs of the Forum for Graduate Rights’ Organizing Committee, clewis740@gmail and eric.o.scott@gmail.com_