After JHU admin refused to provide meaningful protections against discrimination, harassment, and retaliation, denied international workers essential support, and claimed that our teaching and research does not qualify as work at the bargaining table, over 450 grad workers participated in actions in every division across both campuses to demand basic workplace rights in our contract.
Grad workers in the School of Public Health and School of Nursing, along with masters students, post-docs, and others in solidarity, spoke their truth at their Pennies and Post-its action in which they demonstrated their support for each part of our platform with pennies and wrote testimonials of their experiences via post-it notes in the lobby of the Bloomberg building. KSAS Humanties and Social Sciences, School of Ed, and SAIS grads held a hybrid teach-in, where speakers educated grads and undergrads alike on our working conditions and the importance of unionization at JHU. Whiting workers gathered in the breezeway between Krieger and Ames hall to write their experiences with everything from lab safety violation to egregiously high workloads on a banner proudly proclaiming “WHITING WORKS” to demonstrate why we need workplace protections. KSAS STEM grad workers launched an interactive flyering campaign to show JHU that grads deserve real protections. PhD workers at the School of Medicine walked out of our labs to rally for protections for international workers, enforcement of lab safety protocols, and a contract that recognizes that our work is work!
Following these actions, we saw huge movement on our proposals at the table, including a tentative agreement on Health and Safety.
