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Graduate student workers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have voted 218 to 24 to unionize.
The new union said in a news release that the National Labor Relations Board counted the votes Wednesday. Sinai Student Workers says it will represent more than 300 grad workers.
“Many struggle with pay that has not kept up with the high cost of housing, healthcare and other forms of financial stress in New York City, lack secure rights in the workplace, and face increasing uncertainty given the precarious nature of science funding and unstable regulation of visas and work authorization in recent years,” the release said.
The union is affiliated with the United Autoworkers, a major player in the continuing unionization of grad workers. Roughly 38 percent of grad workers are now unionized, according to an August report from the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions.
Sanutha Shetty, a Mount Sinai grad worker, said in the release that “we have already seen the power of organized researchers at major research institutions to dramatically improve their working conditions, including right here in NYC with our postdoc colleagues at Mount Sinai, and student workers at Columbia University, NYU and more. We’re proud to be part of the movement to raise standards across the sector.”
Spokespeople for Mount Sinai did not provide a comment to Inside Higher Ed on Thursday.
