Archives: Timeline Stories

TRU goes public as the JHU graduate workers’ union for the first time, publicly announcing our intentions to win collective bargaining rights for graduate workers at Hopkins and negotiate a union contract.

Grad workers finally win improvements to health insurance, including vision and dental coverage, as some of PATH’s recommendations are incorporated into new student insurance plans.

TRU’s healthcare campaign culminates in an action delivering hundreds of signed postcards from graduate workers demanding better healthcare. Later in the year, JHU finally introduces parental leave for grad workers, and creates the Provost’s Advisory Team on Healthcare (PATH) to review existing grad health insurance.

In the middle of their summer break, the students of the Humanities Center learn that their department would be shut down as of June 30, 2017. Dean Beverly Wendland makes the decision behind closed doors and without public oversight – stranding students and faculty and setting an extremely dangerous precedent. Throughout the 2016 Fall Semester, TRU and graduate students in the Humanities Center demand clarity and oppose the closure of the distinguished 50-year-old department. 

Despite the fact that Johns Hopkins boasts a top-ranking medical school and a world-renowned hospital, many JHU graduate workers find they cannot afford to get sick. So TRU launches a healthcare campaign to address the inadequacy of the current health insurance plan currently offered by the administration.