Postgraduate students in NUI Galway have set up a new activist group to fight for better work and study conditions.
The group – the Postgraduate Workers Alliance NUIG – announced its establishment on Twitter yesterday.
In a tweet, the group wrote: “We are a self organised group composed of PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers at NUI Galway who are concerned with making sure we are treated fairly as researchers and are recognised as workers for the teaching and other duties we provide to the university.”
The news of its foundation comes months after the formation of a similar PhD activist group in Trinity.
The organisation, founded in October by PhD student Thomas Dineen and research assistant Conor Reddy, was set up to fight for postgraduate students to be acknowledged as workers, as well as for increased stipends for PhD workers.
On Twitter, Trinity’s PhD Workers Rights Group welcomed the establishment of the organisation in NUIG: “Brilliant to see another Irish university joining the fight for PhD workers rights, especially in these uncertain times!”
In February, The University Times revealed that casual staff working in the College – a cohort that includes many postgraduate students – were facing teaching pay cuts of nearly 20 per cent.
The episode occurred after a HR document proposing the pay cuts passed through Finance Committee on November 18th without objection.
The following day, nearly 80 students protested outside a meeting of Finance Committee, calling for the cuts to be reversed.
College subsequently rowed back on the pay cuts, and Oye defended her role in the controversy in an interview with this newspaper.
She said the proposal was hidden in hundreds of pages of documents and not flagged as an issue with significant implications for students.
Oye also criticised Trinity for a lack of “transparency” in how it circulates committee documents – something members have frequently criticised College for in the past – and stated: “I’m human. I missed it.”
