June 3, 2025 2:00 PM
Title: The Mobilization of Graduate Employee Unions in Response to Police Brutality on US Campuses: The Case of Pro-Palestine Encampments
Committee members: Kelsy Kretschmer, Allison Hurst, Alison Johnston
Abstract: This study investigates the mobilization of three graduate employee unions in California, New York City, and Florida in response to police intervention at their campus’ pro-Palestine encampments in the Spring of 2024. Through the interviews of twenty-one workers and the application of Mobilization Theory, this essay explores the individual, institutional, and political factors that contributed to the unions’ eventual actions. I find that union size, geographic location, internal network, and relationships with local activist groups were predominant influences on union decisions. Opportunities to mobilize were mediated by state and federal politics, cohesion within the union, and their relationship with their university. The results of this study highlight how graduate employee unions evaluate and act upon their circumstances, the levers of power available to them, and the limits on their organizational capacity. In a time where attacks upon unions and workers are escalating, understanding the ways in which graduate employee unions make decisions is important for predicting how they may respond to opportunities and threats in the future and what this may mean for the future of the broader labor movement in the US.