In November, Carnegie Mellon instituted university-wide raises for student pay. The minimum wage was raised from $8.25 to $10 per hour, and the wages for undergraduate and graduate student graders and teaching assistant were raised to $11 and $13, respectively. This change only affected students in hourly positions, so current graduate students who work as TAs and RAs to fulfill academic requirements continued to earn their stipend, receiving no benefit from this change.
For this reason, many graduate student groups on campus, such as CMU Better, have been working towards increasing and standardizing the stipends of graduate students. Many of the issues organizations like CMU Better are concerned that the current system does not adequately support graduate students who financially support themselves with their stipend alone.
Efforts for wage increases exist beyond graduate students. There is currently an initiative in the Undergraduate Student Senate calling for Carnegie Mellon to begin paying undergraduate students who participate in committees that promote DEI. The work done by these committees can take a significant emotional and mental toll, but Carnegie Mellon currently offers no compensation for these students, unlike other institutions such as the University of Michigan.
As these calls for improved wages and stipends and work standardization occur on campus, many graduate and undergraduate student bodies at peer institutions have pursued unionization to streamline future pay and work condition negotiations. Many universities like the University of Michigan, the University of California system, MIT, Harvard, and Columbia have already formed graduate student unions, and graduate students at Yale, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Dartmouth, and Duke have all formed unions earlier this year. Other institutions such as Temple University and California State University have undergraduate student unions, and undergraduate students at the University of Pennsylvania voted to unionize on Thursday, Sept. 28.
As the cost of being a student in cities like Pittsburgh rises, we may see an increasing number of graduate and undergraduate student workers seeking higher pay for their labor or even attempting to form unions.
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