A reported 216 graduate students voted against Service Employees International Union (SEIU) representation while 174 students voted in favor of an SEIU union. In addition to those 390 ballots, 174 have been challenged.

Voting to determine whether graduate students will unionize—an issue complicated by Washington University’s multiple emails to graduate students and faculty that were perceived by some students as discouraging and anti-union—began Oct. 25 and will continue Oct. 26.

In true authoritarian fashion, the administration has taken advantage of its ability to communicate directly with the whole University in an attempt to sway students into voting against unionizing.

This administration has displayed a stunning lack of awareness of the graduate student work that goes into planning, preparing and guiding undergraduate education.

Washington University graduate students gathered at a rally outside the Danforth University Center and marched toward Brookings Hall in order to speak with administrators about their plans to unionize through the Service Employees International Union on Thursday, Sept. 14

Following Washington University lecturers’ failure to unionize, graduate students are now looking to form a union and will hold a rally in the Danforth University Center Thursday in protest of the University’s anti-unionization position.

Curiously enough, our administration can’t seem to keep its rhetoric on international students consistent.

This past April, Washington University lecturers planned to unionize under the Service Employees International Union Local 1, an organization through which adjunct faculty unionized in April 2016. Although lecturers were gaining momentum in the spring, the vote failed to go through, and the discussion ended with the Service Employees International Union Local 1 this summer.

Lecturers at Washington University are set to vote on union representation by the Service Employees International Union Local 1.

Leaders at Washington University have engaged in a campaign of disinformation and intimidation to undermine the unionization process, with Provost Holden Thorp as the face of this duplicitous endeavor.