A tentative agreement has been reached for a two-year contract between the University and Cornell Graduate Students Union — which represents graduate student workers — according to a Wednesday University statement written by President Michael Kotlikoff.
“The university and CGSU-UE have agreed on contract terms that align with Cornell’s values, protect academic integrity and freedom, and serve the best interests of graduate student workers and the entire Cornell community,” Kotlikoff wrote.
This tentative agreement was decided after one year of negotiations between Cornell and the CGSU bargaining committee, following amendments to the originally proposed contract that Cornell offered on March 11. Cornell formed a bargaining committee with faculty members to discuss a contract with CGSU that includes provisions for healthcare, wages and transportation for graduate student workers.
This tentative agreement includes full dental and visual coverage, free TCAT passes, wage increases for graduate student workers by 7.98 percent for the 2025-2026 academic year and 2.9 percent for the 2026-2027 academic year.
The agreement also includes the “best Just Cause protections in industry history,” according to an Instagram post by CGSU. Just cause protections are tenets that ensure workers cannot be disciplined without specific protocols.
The University has agreed to implement “industry-standard language,” which provides that “discipline or discharge from job related conduct (but not academic matters or other non-employment misconduct) will be governed by the ‘just cause’ standard of review,” according to the Bargaining Tracker.
A notable provision of this proposed contract includes one-time $750 matriculation payment will be provided to each graduate student worker, which can be used to cover the costs of applying or re-applying for visas. Additionally, graduate students will be offered five working days they can use “in order to attend U.S. immigration and citizenship proceedings.”
In response to the originally proposed contract, CGSU launched a strike pledge on March 13 due to the offer’s lack of a union shop policy — which refers to a workplace in which all employees are required to join a union.
“[A] union shop is the foundation of every powerful union in this country,” said Kara Zielinski, a graduate student and CGSU member.
Cornell agreed on March 19 to a modified agency shop with “protections for freedom of conscience” for graduate student workers, according to a representative of Cornell Media Relations. An agency shop is a workplace where union membership is not required, but all employees pay either union dues or an alternate fee. This comes as an amendment to Cornell’s originally proposed contract.
The University spokesperson explained that graduate student workers who do not wish to join the union due to religious objections or “moral or ethical grounds” may choose to donate an amount equivalent to the union dues to a charity of their choice under the agency shop.
“We view [the implementation of an agency shop] as a ‘win-win’ compromise that preserves freedom of choice for students who object to union membership while still recognizing the contractual agreement between the union and the University,” the Cornell spokesperson wrote.
This agency shop will come into effect once the tentative agreement with the union is finalized, but not all graduate student workers see this compromise as a victory.
“Joining and financially supporting CGSU should be a choice,” wrote Ph.D. student Shira Mingelgrin on behalf of members of Cornell United — a group of graduate students that oppose a union shop. Mingelgrin expressed that CGSU and UE have taken political stances that do not represent the beliefs of all graduate student workers.
In November 2024, Cornell United wrote a petition to allow graduate student workers the right to, as stated in the petition, “oppose all efforts to impose any type of ‘union shop,’ ‘agency shop’ or other forced unionism upon Cornell’s graduate community.”
In an interview with The Sun prior to the tentative agreement, Prof. Wendy Wolford, global development — the vice provost for international affairs and a member of the University’s bargaining committee — noted that there was “not an insignificant group” of graduate students who did not want to join the union.
She said this group had made it “very clear” that they would find a union shop to be “problematic in terms of being able to continue their degree in the University.”
In efforts to find a compromise between the graduate students, she argued that “an agency shop where [students] can join or not join, but still have to pay so there's no free riding on the union's efforts … seems like a very fair alternative.”
The tentative agreement will now be voted on by CGSU members for ratification, which is expected to happen in the coming weeks.
Dorothy France-Miller ’27 contributed to reporting.
Correction, March 27, 5:50 p.m.: A previous version of the article incorrectly explained that CGSU is affiliated with UAW and that Cornell United's petition was released in response to a University decision.
