After two years of organizing, graduate students at the University of Montana in Missoula have formed a union that will be one of the largest in the state with over 400 eligible members.

According to the Montana Federation of Public Employees, the Department of Labor and Industry certified the UM Graduate Employees Union last week.

“Our organizing message was simple,” said Colette Berg, an organizing leader and UM alumna, in a statement from MFPE. “Graduate wages, benefits and working conditions do not reflect the cost of living in Missoula and do not reflect our role in research, teaching and learning. Everyone is aware that we are a pillar of UM and we look forward to collective bargaining with UM leadership to jointly address the challenges facing GEU members.”

The labor movement has been active in the United States in recent years, including in Missoula, where housing costs far exceed wages. However, the proportion of unionized workers in the country has declined overall in recent decades.

According to the Montana Federation of Public Employees, graduate students are particularly difficult to organize because they are spread across campus and work on different contracts that can last between two and five years.

According to the Graduate Employee Organization of Montana State University in Bozeman, they are also not easy to maintain. The Graduate Employee Organization has 169 members.

MSU Graduate Employee Organization President M. Wittkop said a graduate student union faces different challenges than other local chapters. That's because a campus union is made up of students – whose members, by definition, are constantly graduating and moving on.

According to the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education, MSU graduates formed their student union in 2015. Bozeman also has notoriously high housing costs.

A report from an April 2024 graduate union meeting in Bozeman said the local will need new members to avoid dissolution. But Wittkop said the union has achieved significant successes for its members, including in 2023.

“We received one of the biggest salary increases ever for all graduates,” said Wittkop.

The increase means an increase of about $100 per month in the minimum stipend for doctoral students, which currently stands at $760 per month, it said. On August 1, the minimum amount will be increased by another $100.

“We also implemented tighter limits on how many courses a teaching assistant can be assigned and changed language regarding the work environment to protect students from 'PI abuse,'” Wittkop said.

(This is the potential abuse of power that a thesis supervisor or senior researcher could commit against a student, they said.)

The graduate union also conducted a cost-of-living survey that found, among other things, that 45 percent of respondents forwent “necessary medical care” to save money and 46 percent skipped meals or ate less to save money.

In addition, the survey found that 57% of doctoral students needed a second job while studying, such as pet sitting. Of 826 research assistants, 184 participated in the 2024 survey, according to the union.

Wittkop said they were convinced the union had long-term potential to survive if it could find new members, but the current challenge was to make its existence known.

“We’re really going to have to put in the work to find these people,” Wittkop said.

According to the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education, the Montana University System already has 23 collective bargaining agreements covering approximately 2,374 of the estimated 9,000 employees. This does not include the new UM union.

According to the commissioner's office, teachers at the Bozeman campus formed a union that was approved in 2011 but revoked in April 2013.

UM has long had a faculty union and a staff union, and MFPE President Amanda Curtis said the organization looks forward to supporting the new graduate student union as well. Berg could not be reached for further comment.

“We are so proud of the UM graduates who have now organized and certified Montana’s largest new union in years,” Curtis said in a statement. “Their commitment to ensuring that college graduates have a say in decisions about their working conditions and wages is what the trade union movement is all about.”

A few years ago, the Missoula Tenants Union was formed in the Garden City, and the nurses at Providence St. Patrick Hospital recently renegotiated their contract, and the impact was palpable. Signs calling for support for nurses have been popping up all over the community.

The Montana Federation of Public Employees said collective bargaining at UM has been characterized for decades by a respectful and fair relationship between union members and university administration.

In an email, UM spokesman Dave Kuntz said the university has worked with the Department of Labor and Industry and the Office of the Commissioner throughout the graduate student process – which is clearly defined in the bylaws.

“Graduates are critical to UM,” Kuntz said in an email. “Their scholarship, research and teaching help advance our entire state and address many of our society's most pressing issues.”

The labor movement in Montana has historically been strong. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 13% of workers were unionized last year, compared to about 10% nationwide.

The Montana Federation of Public Employees' press release states that the state recognized the new Graduate Employees Union at UM on June 25 and that it is the newest local chapter of the MFPE with “full collective bargaining rights to ensure a fair contract.”