1.1 What is a strike? 

A strike is a coordinated stoppage of work aimed at pressuring an employer to meet worker demands by disrupting production: of transcript certification, classroom instruction, research output, and the administrative work behind it, in our case. If the bosses do not meet our needs in bargaining, graduate workers can choose to stop our paid work until the bosses concede. We will also set up picket lines on campus as physical venues for coordinating and sustaining this stoppage, where we can assess our collective power, and strengthen our collective commitment to pressuring the boss by withholding our labor.

1.2 Why is a strike being considered? 

In short, because 2/3rds of our members are rent burdened, paying over 1/3rd of their income towards rent, often right back to Dartmouth. 100 of our members are currently food insecure, meaning they lack consistent access to food that they can afford. This means that our members lack the ability to save for retirement, cover emergency medical expenses, or pay for other essentials. Dartmouth has refused to provide benefits like dental insurance, so half of our members have not received routine dental care in their time at Dartmouth. Our members do the majority of the research labor needed to maintain Dartmouth’s prestige and power, we bring in millions of dollars in grant funding, and our work as teaching assistants and instructors of record is essential to the educational mission of the college. Our most marginalized members face the brunt of these challenges, restricting careers in research and academia to only those with considerable privilege or a strong community safety net. Dartmouth hired us to live and work here, and it is their responsibility to provide survivable conditions for our members. Instead, Dartmouth has consistently refused to provide a fair contract that meets the democratically ratified demands of our membership.

We have been bargaining with Dartmouth since August 2023. Even boilerplate proposals such as Nondiscrimination were met with vitriolic opposition from the management’s bargaining team, and it took months to come to an agreement on such issues. We presented our economic proposals in January 2024, but we did not receive their counter proposals on Compensation, Medical Benefits, Retirement, or Time Off until after we staged our walkout on March 27th. It was clear that they had no intention of negotiating to meet our demands in good faith by the end of this academic year. The only way we have been able to motivate the university to bargain expediently has been to build a real threat of a strike. Repeatedly, our membership have affirmed that the offer on the table is insufficient to meet our needs, so We now have no choice but to take action to use the most powerful tool at our disposal, withdrawing our labor and shutting down the university’s core research and teaching functions. If we strike, Dartmouth can end this disruption any time, by negotiating a fair contract in good faith.

1.3 Why does a strike work? 

Strikes work because employers depend on the labor of their workers to operate – Dartmouth is no exception. If we withhold our labor, core functions of the university cease. Graduate workers are central to the daily operation of the university; alongside our lecturer and researcher colleagues, we assist in teaching many of the undergraduate courses at Dartmouth and provide a significant portion of one-on-one interaction with students. We therefore have the leverage to get our demands met: if we withhold grades and refuse to teach or do paid research we make it impossible for Dartmouth to function normally.

Due to the nature of academic work, the effectiveness of grad union strikes is maximally felt through the steady accumulation of missed classes, grades and research outputs. For this accumulation to happen, the university must not be able to simply rearrange our work so that key deadlines (exam dates, grade submission dates, key lessons) occur after they know the strike will end. See section 2 of the strike school materials for an in-depth discussion of the strategy behind indefinite strikes (request access with a non-Dartmouth email identifying yourself).

We’ve seen fellow grad workers at Columbia and Michigan build and exercise collective power not so long ago through indefinite strikes that resulted in historic wins, including: large salary increases, better childcare subsidies, harassment and discrimination protections, and full unit recognition (that had been illegally denied by the bosses at Columbia for years).

1.4 How long will the strike last? 

The strike will end when we reach a tentative agreement (TA) on our contract with Dartmouth management. Any such agreement will have to be approved and ratified by the membership. We will collectively decide if what’s on the table will justify ending the strike, i.e., if we are satisfied with what Dartmouth has offered in terms of ending rent burden, comprehensive medical benefits including dental and vision coverage, adequate childcare subsidies for parent-workers, union security, etc.

In other words, we, the workers, are the only ones who can decide how long the strike will last through weekly votes. Once the strike begins, everyone in the unit will regularly vote on whether or not to extend the strike another week or until the next offer from Dartmouth is on the table (this is what the “indefinite” strike refers to). We will ask ourselves: is our strike still powerful, can our department keep going? Do you think the offer at the table is fair? Do you believe there is more to win?

We are taking this approach because of how the economic activity of the university is organized, inspired by its effectiveness at other campuses like the University of Michigan.

1.5 What is a strike authorization vote? 

A strike authorization vote gives our bargaining committee the authority to schedule a strike on a certain date if Dartmouth fails to offer a satisfactory contract on our timeline. At our February General Body Meeting, the GOLD-UE membership set a goal to call for a unit-wide strike authorization vote to be administered in April 2024. A strike can be authorized if a simple majority of the voters have voted yes. All bargaining unit members, meaning any graduate worker who is paid for teaching or research labor, who have signed a union card were eligible to vote in the strike authorization. On April 15-17, our members voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike.

1.6 How can I support as a non graduate Dartmouth employee? 

Coordinating and sustaining the strike will take significant worker-to-worker organizing and community support. You can also disrupt the university’s functioning outside of labor withholding by supporting the organizing of the strike fund, engaging our community allies, joining our picket lines, etc. It will truly take a village to support the needs of striking graduate workers. Community supporters can donate to the strike fund, join us on the picket line, help out at the strike kitchen and more.

Another major thing you can do if to support the strike is to not stand in its way! Above all this means refusing to take over work for striking colleagues, refusing to report names of workers on strike to management, and working at the department level to show faculty and management that we are all in solidarity.

1.7 Strike school material

GOLD is holding structured group discussions over the month of April to prepare for the possibility of a strike. We urge every member to attend a session and bring their questions, concerns, excitement, frustration—and coworkers. RSVP here.

Again, we urge you to come join a strike school to chew on these ideas. But if you haven’t yet received the material in a session and wish to read it, request access here. Please use a non-Dartmouth email and make sure we can identify you as one of our members (e.g. first and last name).

2.1 What will the strike look like for graduate workers? 

First and foremost: withholding our labor. Stopping our work can take several forms. 

• Instructors, teaching assistants, tutors, and graders should not

• Deliver lectures, teaching seminars, or lead TA discussion sections

• Prepare lecture materials or seminar notes

• Attend instructor or TA-related meetings with their supervisor

• Grade student work

• Hold office hours with students

• Maintain lab equipment relevant to teaching; and

• Answer communications (email, Slack, Teams, phone calls) from instructors and students.

It is not necessary, however, to cease all contact with our students: it is important that they understand what we are doing and why. Because our working conditions are their learning conditions, our students should be informed and involved before the strike begins.  During the strike, we can educate them further about our shared conditions through teach-ins conducted outside of university channels and by inviting them to our picket lines. We will not, however, discuss or provide them course materials, assignments, grades, lessons, or perform any duties related to our paid work.

2.2 But the students?! 

It’s hard to feel like you’re leaving your students behind for a while, but remember, our working conditions directly affect the quality of education we are able to give our students. An instructor making a living wage is an instructor who can focus on their class, and not where next month’s rent is coming from— a short-term disruption to learning now means a serious improvement in long-term education. Not to mention that many advanced undergrads are planning to become grad students themselves very soon.

When you’re asked to “think of the children,” you can tell them that’s exactly what you’re doing. And the disruption only lasts until Dartmouth offers us fair terms and lets us get back into the classroom. In the meantime, you can give your students a valuable field lesson in labor politics with real-world applications. You can even bring them to the picket line. If you would like some resources and materials to distribute to students, refer to this guide or reach out to a union organizer. 

2.3 What will the strike look like for researchers? 

The separation between “work” and “education” that exists among grad instructors is far less clear or common among researchers. This complicates what a strike would look like for researchers in our unit and many members rightfully have concerns and questions about maintaining live animals and sensitive biological samples, sabotaging their own dissertation research, and navigating the delicate relationship that many researchers have with their supervisors.

Furthermore, the labor processes in these labs do not align with one another, meaning that a strike at any given time will affect various labs, or even individuals, in drastically different ways. This means that there is no uniform answer to what a research strike would mean for every researcher. 

What seems to be a prerequisite for carrying out a research strike is a far more minute understanding of the timelines and labor process of specific labs at different points of the year, and a targeted approach to the withdrawal of labor that maximizes its impact. Careful deliberation on how to strike through lab-level coordination offers a way to overcome these difficulties inherent to a researcher strike. 

At our General Body Meeting on April 15th, our membership agreed to strike all research duties, including the following:

• Attending and presenting at group and individual meetings

• Maintaining lab equipment and ordering inventory

• Maintaining group software, servers, and websites

• Submitting papers, grant proposals, and progress reports

• Preparing and giving presentations/seminars/colloquia

• Answering communications (email, Slack, texts, phone calls) from your PI, labmates, administrators or tech staff

• Mentoring undergraduates or junior lab members

• Sharing data and/or results

Members who have concerns about withholding specific duties should discuss them with organizers in their department.

For a more in-depth discussion of organizing a research strike, see section 4 of the strike school material. 

3.1 Can I be fired or disciplined for going on strike? 

Labor law protects our right to strike without retaliation. Our strike is legally permissible as an Unfair Labor Practice strike, due to Dartmouth’s illegal actions. According to labor law, workers striking over a ULP cannot be fired or permanently replaced. It is also illegal for any supervisor to retaliate against a worker for striking in any way. This includes termination for striking, discipline for striking, threats of hypothetical “consequences” for striking, interrogating workers about their strike plans, blacklisting through refusal to write recommendation letters, withdrawal of mentorship or opportunities as a result of striking, assignment of disciplinary Low Pass (LP) or No Credit (NC) grades for our research and teaching work. Any such action taken by a supervisor is an assault on the rights of all graduate workers and the union is prepared to respond.

We can and should use what protections the law affords us, but we should also recognize their limitations. In order to break the strike, Dartmouth might choose to threaten workers with discipline or dismissal, with interference in immigration status, or with other forms of retaliation regardless of legality. If the strike is threatening business as usual — that is, if the strike is doing what it should do — Dartmouth may even illegally fire workers. If this happens, workers will be able to get their jobs back after a potentially drawn-out legal process. 

While the law is a tool we can and should use to our advantage when we can, it is not a magic wand that can wave away all risk. Our real strength comes from our capacity to withhold labor and from our standing in solidarity with each other. When everyone participates, it becomes more difficult for the administration to target individuals for intimidation. A strong strike is how we protect each other. 

3.2 Will I be paid while I am on strike? 

Employers are legally allowed to withhold pay for any work struck. But this means that the onus will be on Dartmouth to figure out who is striking and who is not. Usually, university managements tend to rely on sending out attestation forms to grad workers, faculty and sometimes even undergrads. The management may present filling out these forms as legally required, but this is false - neither you nor your coworkers are under any legal obligation to report any strike activities to the administration. 

However, this does not mean that Dartmouth management will not illegally withhold pay from grad workers without any proof that they are on strike. We are working to set up a union-wide hardship fund in case the management chooses to stop paying us for any reason during the strike, and we recommend you reach out to your coworkers to identify who among you is particularly vulnerable and set up some form of mutual aid response if necessary: this could be as simple as pooling groceries or providing childcare for your coworkers. 

One thing to keep in mind: back pay will also be one of the conditions we set with Dartmouth for resolving the strike. If we stand collectively as a group, it is likely we will receive back pay, even if the administration discontinued our payments during the strike.

3.3 What is the hardship fund

The hardship fund exists to support striking workers if their pay is withheld during a strike. More established union locals can save up dues revenue over time for this purpose, but in our case, we will have to rely on a network of labor activists and supporters across the country and across the world. We have set up the financial infrastructure to absorb a large influx of donations in the event of a strike. We're also building out a network of community supporters to assist us with strike fundraising, as most of the day-to-day work of our organizers is better spent organizing than fundraising. Our strike fund will likely rely on a large volume of small donations. However, we can likely anticipate some larger donations from wealthy alumni or other benefactors. Other grad strikes have raised 100s of thousands of dollars over relatively short periods of time. We also have community supporters preparing a strike kitchen to prepare daily meals at the picket line.

3.4 What is scabbing? 

“Scabbing”, or “strikebreaking”, refers to activity that disrupts or weakens the power of the strike, including but not limited to: continuing to work during the strike, taking on a colleague’s work while they are on strike, encouraging others not to stop working, and communicating with the management about your paid work — including telling the management (“attesting”) that a colleague is indeed absent from work. Scabbing undermines the power of the strike, requiring workers to stay out longer to achieve their goals. Those looking for a prompt resolution to the strike should apply pressure to Dartmouth to settle the contract on fair terms, rather than participate in Dartmouth’s union busting by scabbing.

The management will likely solicit such information not only from workers, but also from undergraduate students and from faculty. You can tell your students why you’re going on strike and ask for their support. It is important that we communicate to our students and other campus allies that to support us, they must not reveal the identities of people on strike to the management or attempt to replace our labor. 

As seasoned labor organizer Alan Hanson writes, “Whenever we take action at work, we can expect management to fight back—though the tactics vary widely, depending whether they’re trying to scare us, confuse us, deflate us, or divide us.” We can prepare for these tactics in advance by talking with our coworkers about what our boss will likely say or do once a strike is called. This preparation is known as “inoculation.” 

3.5 What if I am an international worker?

International workers have the same rights as domestic workers do to join a union or participate in a strike, demonstration, picket, etc. It is possible, however,  that the university will falsely claim or imply that international workers jeopardize their immigration status by striking — other universities have done so in the past to undermine strikes. Your visa status is tied to your academic status, and it is illegal for Dartmouth to retaliate against your academic status based on your employment activities. Thus, it is extremely unlikely that international workers will be targeted in this way, but it is not impossible. This would be a very dangerous escalation on the part of the College, and one that would be sure to face public backlash and pressure. To this date, there are no cases in which a university illegally retaliated against striking international graduate workers in this way. You can also read our international workers-specific FAQ for more details.

3.6 What if my professor/PI retaliates? 

We know from past labor actions that professors and PIs will have various perspectives on our strike from highly supportive to deeply antagonistic to totally ambivalent. Although it is illegal to do so, we should expect that some PIs and faculty will try to retaliate against striking grads in order to force us back to work. Our first and strongest line of defense against this kind of retaliation is our ability to act in the collective, as it becomes much more difficult for PIs to punish us all together than as isolated individuals. This means that organizing our cohorts, labs, and departments to collectively strike, strike visibly, and communicate with each other throughout the strike will not only increase our power and our odds of victory, but is also one of the best means we have to protect ourselves and each other.

Coordinated messaging to faculty by grads and other workers prior to and during the strike can also be effective in mitigating their potential negative response. In some instances, they can be directed to put pressure on the management to concede to our demands, rather than pressure us to return to work. However, while organizing with other workers to do outreach to faculty and enlisting their support can be useful in building solidarity (both between workers in departments and between workers and faculty), our real strength comes from each other and our ability to withhold crucial labor collectively.

4.1 Should I tell my supervisor/collaborators that I am on strike? 

You should inform your supervisor that you are going on strike. If multiple people in your lab/office are going on strike, you all should inform the supervisor together. We have compiled a list of talking points that you can reference in these conversations with faculty. In the event that a strike is authorized, we will provide template emails/letters to send to your advisor.

4.2 What if my supervisor/collaborators are worried about me going on strike?

You should tell your supervisor/collaborator that you are simply asking for a living wage, better comprehensive benefits, and fairness for international students. Striking is the only option Dartmouth admin has left you. If your supervisor/collaborator is concerned, they should contact their department chair, President Sian Beilock (President's.Office@Dartmouth.edu) and Provost David Kotz (Office.of.the.Provost@dartmouth.edu) and ask them to settle/avoid the strike by agreeing to graduate workers’ demands.

5.1 I am an undergrad/postdoc/faculty member/campus worker. How can I help?

We are making the following asks of other workers in the community:

• Avoid performing the work of grad students who are on strike. 

• Email President Sian Beilock (President's.Office@Dartmouth.edu) and Provost David Kotz (Office.of.the.Provost@dartmouth.edu) and ask to settle the strike as soon as possible by agreeing to demands of the graduate workers. You can find a template email here. 

• Donate to our hardship fund.

• Avoid entering classrooms, offices, labs, and libraries where possible.

• Join picket lines. 

Under some circumstances, you may have the protected right to not cross a picket line to perform your work; details are given below for different groups. 

5.2 Should I refrain from crossing a picket line as a non-unionized worker (i.e. post-docs, pre-docs, non-graduate-student RAs)? 

Yes! Under the National Labor Relations Act, a non-unionized worker has the legal right to refuse to cross a picket line at the building where you work as a sympathy striker. We are asking all such workers to sympathy strike with us.

5.3 Should I refrain from crossing a picket line as a worker in a different union? 

You should contact an organizer from your union, because the terms of your union contract will determine whether you may or may not engage in sympathy striking. 

5.4 Should I refrain from crossing a picket line as a union supporter who does not currently work on campus (e.g. an undergrad attending a class)? 

If you can do so, we welcome support from all our campus comrades. However, we have limited legal standing to protect non-workers. We thus advise against taking any actions that would lead to disciplinary/academic consequences, so please use your judgment. Discipline is less likely if you can convince all of your classmates to respect the picket line with you. 

5.5 What can I say to someone outside GOLD-UE who is crossing a picket line/signing up to replace the labor of a striking GOLD-UE member? 

Tell them why we are going on strike: a living wage, comprehensive benefits, and fairness for international students. Winning these things will improve campus for everyone and enable us to perform our research and teaching duties without distraction. By withholding our labor, we can force Dartmouth to recognize our worth. Replacing a striking GOLD-UE member undermines this show of force.

5.6 I work within an external organization. Is there really any value in withholding my labor?

Yes! If you work within an external organization (e.g. on a large experiment at a national lab, on a big collaborative project with other universities, etc.), you should still strike. You should explain the situation to your supervisors and collaborators and encourage them to reach out to Dartmouth admin per the discussion in ‘What if my supervisor/collaborators are worried about me going on strike?’