Research Assistants Vote Unanimously to Join UIC GEO

March 8th, 2024

This week, Research Assistants were asked whether or not to unionize with GEO, and the results are in. The vote was unanimous–not a single Research Assistant voted against unionization. This represents the culmination of years of work and hundreds of conversations with our coworkers about our working conditions in departments across East and West campus. All of that work revealed one thing: RAs need a union. Now RAs have a union.

When our sister union at Urbana-Champaign first organized 21 years ago, their campaign led to the passage of legislation that gave Teaching and Graduate Assistants the right to unionize. Research Assistants were excluded and remained so until 2019, when Illinois state law recognized them as employees. Yesterday’s unanimous vote in favor of Research Assistant unionization is historic: it is the first unionization of graduate researchers at a public university in Illinois, and one of the first in the country.

Today we’re celebrating, but tomorrow we keep on organizing. We still need to bargain an agreement with the university that extends the current GEO contract to RAs so that RAs can actually enjoy the rights and protections they’ve worked so hard to win. And we’re already looking ahead to 2025 when we will negotiate our next contract: TAs, GAs, and RAs all together as one. We have always known that we are stronger together, and we are poised to make the next contract our best contract ever.