Union Finances
CGSU represented the role of UE as a mere "umbrella organization that helps support our work with advice and, in a limited capacity, legal and financial resources," but in fact, UE has much more to gain from us than we do from them:
The UE national constitution enforces on all of its members a minimum monthly dues payment equivalent to 1.65 hours of work. This minimum fee is known as a per capita tax. For a 40 hour work week, the lowest possible dues payment is over 1% of our stipend. At MIT the dues rate is 1.44%, the same as Harvard and Columbia.
Consider MIT's UE-affiliated grad student union as an example. We have included their proposed 2024 annual budget below (don't forget to click the figures). Of the $2.2 million of anticipated revenue, over $1.5 million will go straight to UE national headquarters, 6 times more than the "local expenses." Assuming the same rate, CGSU will forfeit over 70% of all dues by affiliating with UE.
Given our current stipends and the minimum mandatory per capita tax, UE headquarters stands to gain around $1.3 million annually from a union shop at Cornell.
It may not sound like a lot, but for UE, whose annual revenue has remained around $5 million for the past 20+ years and whose net assets have plummeted from over $15 million to less than $1 million since 2000 (see below), each graduate student union is a major windfall.
To be concrete, Cornell's and MIT's graduate schools will add around 6,000 people to UE's current membership of 25,000, but together will contribute ~$3 million in dues. That's a ~25% increase in membership, but a ~75% increase in dues revenue!
UE_national_LM2_summary.pdfUE_locals_finance_summary.pdfConsider the financial summary of existing UE locals representing electricians, factory workers, solid waste workers and manufacturing plant workers from the year 2000 to the present.
The revenue generated from each local is on the order of $10,000, while each grad student union would generate more than $1,000,000 per year
Clearly the dues revenue from Cornell grads would vastly exceed that of UE's current locals. UE is not financially supporting CGSU because they are generous, they are making an investment!
"All unions are doing variations of this. Steelworkers are organizing grocery clerks. The UAW is going where the ducks are. All unions today have an open hunting license...."
The vast majority of income to UE goes to salary and benefits. We grad students are being used as instruments to pay the salaries of employees of a private political organization. If you're interested to see UE's complete financial records, click here.
CGSU must explain to us how the “limited financial and legal support” from UE can cost $1.3 million a year, especially when UE simply does not have the financial resources to support us if we go on strike. According to their most recent financial disclosure (shown below), UE spent $0 in 2022 to support striking workers, while the United Auto Workers (UAW) who represent Columbia and Harvard grad students spent $45 million on strike benefits in the same fiscal year.
UE_LM2_2022.pdfIf you feel that a union shop is inappropriate for an academic setting, please sign our open letter to the Cornell Administration (you can remain anonymous). If you want to learn more about what's in it for CGSU, click here. We invite everyone with questions and comments to reach out to us.