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BUILD ACTIVATE MOBILIZE

We are a group of graduate workers at Cornell running for election because we are dedicated to building a powerful, democratic union that can leverage mass participation to fight for change on Cornell’s campuses.

Amid widespread attacks on labor, non-citizens, and higher education, building a strong, fighting union that is rooted in UE democratic principles is more important than ever.

Voting for the 2026 term will be held electronically from October 1st to October 3rd. All union members should receive an electronic ballot to their Cornell emails through OpaVote.

our platform

  • Our union is committed to being the first line of defense to protect international grads. This is especially important since we cannot rely on Cornell to protect us: President Kotlikoff told the GPSA that he is not willing to go above and beyond to protect international grads. Cornell’s priority is its endowment, not its people. International workers are 50% of CGSU, and we will not allow the nationwide attacks on non-citizen rights to divide or silence us. 

    Unions across the country have been at the forefront of the fight against the federal government’s targeted attack on international workers. Amid the nationwide assault on the rights of international workers, we will fight with and for international workers through building out international worker leadership in our union, enforcing the international worker protections we secured in our contract, and carrying out a robust education program on non-citizen workers’ rights and protections. We will also continue to build strong relationships with other campus organizations, union locals, and the broader Ithaca community to build a mass defense against attacks on our rights and develop international worker leadership and organizing structures. As Angela Davis said on our campus last spring, it’s time to “turn that fear into collective power.”

    Our plan:

    1. Organize to build international worker power and encourage international worker participation and leadership in our union, and educate all CGSU-UE members on international worker issues and rights. 

    2. Continue developing and disseminating a unit-wide International Grad Survey to hear more from grads about how CGSU-UE can best support them.

    3. Enforce the benefits we secured for international grads in our contract, including sanctuary campus protections, more efficient ISO responses, and exemptions from the ITAP exam.

    4. Creating a guide and expanding resources for international grads to follow in case of changes to visa rules and SEVIS or visa revocations, including access to an emergency hotline. 

    5. Provide Know Your Rights Trainings to give international grads essential information about handling ICE and crossing the border.

    6. Build relationships with our sibling locals and unions across Ithaca to collectively weather federal attacks against non-citizen workers.

    7. Continue to collaborate with other graduate unions through the UE Higher Education Conference Board and Higher Education Labor United (HELU) to continue developing sector-wide strategies and resources for international workers.

  • We fought for and won industry-setting protections in our contract—guaranteed funding, academic due process, protections from harassment, better protections against unjust discipline and discharge, and academic freedom. We now have a robust network of over 115 stewards spread across 47 departments and all 7 regions working collaboratively to make the working conditions enshrined in our contract a reality. Together, we have already fought to ensure that grad workers are paid on time and have functional TCAT passes, and we will continue to organize around even bigger fights—the rights of international workers, academic due process during A and Q exams, and academic freedom on campus and in the classroom. While Cornell hides behind the word “austerity” and attempts to isolate grad workers, we will continue to put pressure on faculty and admin to respect our contract and protect workers rather than profit. At a time when the federal administration stands against many of our principal values, our union’s fight for the dignity of grads will make our campus and others safer. That struggle begins at the department level, and stewards are our first line of defense. 

    Our plan:

    1. Continue to grow our steward network to ensure that the contract is proactively enforced across our campus.

    2. Ensure our steward network is sustainable, inclusive, collaborative, community-driven, and open at every level.

    3. Enforce our industry-setting academic due process and non-appointment discipline and discharge protections to their maximum potential, especially in the context of the recent attacks on academic workers and Cornell’s abuse of Q and A exams to fire workers unilaterally without Just Cause.

    4. Ensure connection of individual-level and department-level fights into campus-wide organizing efforts, making sure members are never fighting alone.

    5. Fight beyond the language of our contract, mobilizing our stewards and members to protect grad workers like we did for the second-year M.S. in ILR workers this summer.

  • The members run this union, and our union is powerful when members stand together. To win the fights that matter most to us as graduate workers, we need every voice engaged and every hand in the struggle. We want members to be involved at every level with broad opportunities for engagement to empower a new generation of members to take bold action at the department level and beyond. We’re building a culture where no one is isolated, where struggles in one department are understood as shared across campus, and where solidarity is not just a word but a practice. We’ve built our General Membership Meetings into spaces where any member can come and have their voice heard. In addition, we have created five committees (the Trans Rights Action Committee; the Political Action Committee; the Communications Committee; the Data Committee; and the Social Committee) to foster membership-wide participation in building our union. We will continue this culture of transparent leadership to make sure every member has a share of our fight. By deepening department-level organizing and connecting graduate workers across disciplines, we are laying the groundwork for a strong, democratic union rooted in collective power. When we fight together, we win together.

    Our plan:

    1. Build a strong union culture on our campus by promoting mass participation in monthly General Membership Meetings, town halls, department meetings, and committees in addition to onboarding and training for organizers and stewards, to ensure every grad worker has a voice in our union.

    2. Maintain regular and transparent communication with all members. 

    3. Ensure that all members understand UE’s history of rank-and-file leadership, empowering them to take an active role in our union, whether through organizing, stewarding, committee work, or solidarity.

    4. Strengthen outreach to and mutual support with Diversity Council organizations on campus.

    5. Protect our Union Shop rights to build a strong foundation for our democratic union through mass membership and everyone contributing their fair share.

  • We will fight for the right of graduate workers to teach all relevant material and promote critical discussion in the classroom without the threat of surveillance. We will continue to fight for our right to free expression and public demonstrations of free speech without undue administrative discipline. Given the recent events on this campus and many others across the nation, we will specifically hold Cornell accountable to protect graduate workers who speak out against the ongoing genocide in Palestine, and we will fight against the particularly egregious retribution international graduate workers have faced for exercising their right to free expression on this campus. We are committed to continuing to collaborate with other organizations on campus to protect grads’ freedom of expression such as the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), including through joint rallies and on-campus demonstrations to call on Cornell administration to stand united with its faculty and grad workers in the defense of our freedom of speech. Additionally, we will fight to protect all other fields currently under attack, including research on anthropogenic climate change, transmissible disease outbreaks, and cancer. We are also committed to all DEI initiatives and protections for workers of color, trans and queer workers, and workers facing other systemic socio-cultural inequalities.

    Our plan:

    1. Aggressively enforce our Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression Article to ensure no graduate worker will have to capitulate on the content of their research or course material.

    2. Protect our right to assemble or protest and the right to address any matter of institutional governance, policy, or action, and consultation on new university policies via the grievance procedure.

    3. Educate grads about interfacing with OSCCS and/or CUPD and assist grads in any disciplinary proceedings related to academic freedom.

    4. Promote robust discussion and membership engagement in adopting UE’s 2025 resolutions, including the “End the Genocide in Palestine,” the “Stand Up for the Rights of Immigrant Workers,” and the “The Fight for Higher Education” resolutions, which especially relate to us as members.

    5. Utilize our industry-setting Discipline & Discharge article, including our non-appointment discipline protections, to ensure that grads cannot be unfairly disciplined for any reason.

  • This is a time of crisis in higher education and the labor movement as a whole. We are witnessing national-level attacks on noncitizens, academic researchers, and organized labor. Our union is facing attacks from far-right organizations making baseless accusations of antisemitism as a method to dismantle unions. Cornell’s austerity measures are sweeping across campus, with abuse of the Q and A exams to unfairly fire grad workers without due process. Cornell is in negotiations with the Trump administration to make a deal that will crush protests against the genocide in Palestine with one hand and force trans people off of this campus with the other, all to protect their bottom line. These attacks are not made in isolation to each other, and our responses to them must be equally connected. As a union, we must recognize the strategies being used against us and respond in a militant, coordinated manner in order to protect every single one of our members. We have already laid the groundwork for this, with our network of over 115 stewards, the Trans Rights Action Committee, and the Political Action Committee. These networks provide the basis for how we are fighting back against the multitude of violations of our contract and the ongoing persecution of trans, international, and outspoken grad workers, explicitly recognizing that our union must fight as a united front. Over the next year, we will build on the groundwork that we’ve laid in the past two and a half months by taking action across these interconnected fights.

    Our plan:

    1. Be prepared to strike for voluntary recognition if the National Right to Work Committee’s lawsuit overturns our collective bargaining rights

    2. Engage in frequent conversations with sibling UE shops and other organized labor in Ithaca and across the country (including AAUP, CCAW, and UAW) to coordinate actions that put pressure on Cornell to fight against attacks on higher education and labor rights.

    3. Pressure Cornell, through formal grievances and organizing, not to capitulate to the federal government’s pressure tactics aimed at dismantling higher education across the country, and to instead use their financial resources and endowment to ensure the continuation of funding for graduate workers, both domestic and international.

    4. Compile and publish legal and financial resources for graduate workers under immigration or funding pressure.

    5. Protect and expand graduate workers’ legal rights to form unions, bargain, and enforce their contracts amid nationwide attacks on federal labor protections.

    6. Continue to fight for fellow inclusion in our bargaining unit through local organizing efforts and nationwide coordination.

    7. Fight back against the Trump administration’s attacks on trans people on Cornell campus and in the Ithaca community with the Trans Rights Action Committee.

    8. Continue to educate membership on political fights connected to our union with the Political Action Committee.

our candidates

ewa nizalowska
president

gabe sekeres
vice president for membership

jenna marvin
campus head steward

andrea cicirello
financial secretary

deepanjali chowdhury
recording secretary

maría bulla
communications secretary

regional lead stewards

calla bush st george
region 1

stephan wagner
region 4

evan dong
region 5

max fan
region 6

becca margolit-chan
region 7

at large delegates

katrina davis

jared farley

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