Statement of Support for the VT Graduate Labor Union

Dear VT Community,

On September 5th, 2023 the Virginia Tech Graduate Labor Union (VT-GLU) along with the United Campus Workers - Virginia Tech (UCW-VT) publicly announced their presence and intentions to the Virginia Tech community. 

With this declaration we, the Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS), would like to clarify our position. The GPSS remains a non-affiliated shared governance entity that fulfills its university approved mission by “serving as a voice for all graduate students through advocacy and community-building”, “ensuring access to the resources necessary for scholarly and professional success” and “fostering a network of coalitions among all graduate students to achieve these goals”. We will continue to work for a living wage, secure contract protections and improve the university climate, amongst all the other important issues related to our mission that the GPSS has worked to secure for the last five years.

Although GPSS remains a distinct and different entity than the VT-GLU, we would like to make it explicitly clear that we support the efforts of graduate students advocating for themselves. As outlined in VT-GLU’s press release, there is a great deal of overlap with GPSS’s long-term goals, particularly that of securing graduate students a Living Wage. The GPSS has worked to secure this goal within VT-approved channels through five executive boards, four Quality of Life reports, and countless hours of administrative, governance, and faculty meetings on top of work and research responsibilities. The GPSS hopes that the VT-GLU will succeed and work to support and care for graduate students in the ways VT administration and affiliates have failed to do.

In the interest of advocating for graduate students, we recognize this alliance, and support VT-GLU’s endeavors to give voice to graduate students and lobby for change.

In the spirit of Ut Prosim, let us all work together to continue to make Virginia Tech the community we want it to be. 

Sincerely,

The Senators and Executive Board of the Graduate and Professional Student Senate