Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) has voted to formally back the TCD Postgraduate Workers’ Alliance in its fight for worker status for PhD candidates.
The motion will see the union actively participate in the alliance’s campaigns and collaborate on campus-based activities.
Speaking in favour of the motion, Eoghan Ross, a member of the alliance, said: “At the moment we’re paid less than minimum wage in all cases.”
“The strain that is put on us hurts our ability to help you. … we want to be a part of your union.”
Keogh added: “It’s imperative that we ensure postgraduates are paid fairly for fair work, we need to fulfil our duty of care to these students.”
The alliance aims to win full workers’ rights for PhD students, including moving away from the stipend funding system to salaries above the living wage, full benefits including health insurance and maternity leave as well as public pension contributions.
It also calls for an end to unpaid and precarious teaching in universities.
The group recently met with Seanad bye election candidate Hazel Chu. Chu has since called for full worker’s rights for PhD candidates.
First set up in 2019 as a PhD rights activist group, the alliance is formally backed by the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) despite numerous clashes including when the group endorsed President Gisèle Scanlon’s challenger in last year’s GSU election.
In January, The University Times reported that the GSU president and vice president privately blasted the Postgraduate Workers’ Alliance for its members’ conduct at a now-notorious EGM, saying that the events of the meeting made them feel “harassed, attacked and disrespected”.
A confidential internal report carried out by the GSU after the meeting, a copy of which was obtained by this newspaper, broadly blames the problems with the EGM on “a small specific group” of postgraduates who “hijacked the meeting”.
The current and former chair of the Alliance have vociferously rebuked the GSU’s version of events, calling into question the motives for compiling the report.
Criticism of President Gisèle Scanlon and Vice President Abhisweta Bhattacharjee was led by the Postgraduate Workers’ Alliance, an independent lobby group which the GSU voted to formally back last year.
Bhattacharjee, who chaired the meeting, said in her testimony that she felt “absolutely bullied, harassed, attacked and disrespected” by the conduct of some attendees in the virtual meeting, though she did not name the Alliance specifically. Scanlon accused the group of displaying “disrespectful behaviour”.
Scanlon blasted “the antics and bizarre efforts” of a handful of members to disrupt the meeting, claiming that members of the Postgraduate Workers’ Alliance took to Twitter to “abuse” her after the meeting.
The report was presented to the Senior Dean last year but the entire contents were redacted by the GSU.
