On April 28, the Dartmouth Student Government Senate met for its fifth weekly meeting of the spring term. Led by student body president Jessica Chiriboga ’24, the Senate discussed how to inform undergraduate students about a potential graduate student worker strike organized by the Graduate Organized Laborers of Dartmouth-United Electrical Workers, the College’s graduate workers’ union.
From April 15-17, GOLD-UE members voted “overwhelmingly” to authorize a strike, according to the union’s website. The vote did not call for an immediate strike and does not guarantee that a strike will occur, but gives the union the ability to hold one if negotiations stall.
During the DSG meeting, SWCD organizer Hosaena Tilahun ’25 said the College had not “budged” in their negotiations with GOLD-UE, which have been ongoing since 2023. Among the union’s concerns are an insufficient graduate student living stipend, a lack of a “comprehensive” healthcare plan and financial barriers for international students, she said.
Tilahun urged the Senate to send out an “informational” email to undergraduate students that includes ways to “express solidarity” with the unions during a potential strike.
Prior to the meeting, the SWCD drafted the email they wanted DSG to send out and shared it with Chiriboga, student body vice president Kiara Ortiz ’24 and town affairs liaison Nicolás Macri ’24. The three then edited the email, according to Macri. The edited version was sent to the senators before the Senate meeting, while the original version was shared during the meeting at Tilahun’s request.
Tilahun expressed concern that the edits changed the purpose of the original email, which she said had “very intentional wording” and had been co-written by graduate students. For example, Tilahun said DSG removed a paragraph that asked undergraduate workers to not “take up” graduate teaching assistant work during the strike.
“While DSG tends to take a neutral stance about campus changes and social activism, SWCD has been clear from the beginning that we want undergraduate students to be educated about the real, dire situation that graduate students are in, and at times that means having more forceful language,” Tilahun said.
Ortiz said during the meeting that the Senate would send the drafted email back to the SWCD for confirmation before the email is sent to undergraduate students. Tilahun responded that the SWCD was “not comfortable” with the Senate voting on the revised email because DSG’s edits rendered the email “insufficient in explaining to the undergraduate student body the stakes that are at hand” in the authorized strike.
The Senate debated whether the email should be informational or take a stance in favor of SWCD and GOLD-UE.
School House senator Alejandra Carrasco Alayo ’25 said an email informing undergraduate students about the strike “feels like endorsing” the unions.
“If we are supporting [the strikers], we need to [say that] out loud, but we don’t need to ‘soften’ the language and say we’re just informing people,” she said.
West House senator Samay Sahu ’27 said he supported explicitly endorsing the graduate workers’ strike because it “directly affects a lot of undergraduate students.” Graduate students work with undergraduates and professors through their work as teaching assistants, lab instructors, test graders and more.
“There’s a reason the graduate students are striking, and it’s because there is a problem,” he said. “Our decision should be straightforward.”
The senators voted 9 - 4 - 1 to move to a closed session off the record.
In an interview after the meeting, Chiriboga and Macri explained that the Senate first held a vote to “take some action or no action.” The senate voted 13-1 to take action, according to chief of staff Anthony Fosu ’24. A second vote to write an “explicitly supportive or officially neutral” email tied 7-7 among senators, according to Macri. He said Ortiz broke the tie in her capacity as vice president by voting in favor of an informational email.
Chiriboga vetoed the vote because she believed the senators had “no consensus,” and several senators were not present. She said she preferred to have “continued discussion” and have all senators vote.
In an email statement to The Dartmouth, Ortiz wrote that the Senate voted 10 - 0 - 2 on April 29 to “send information” about the potential strike to undergraduates. The email, which was released the same night by DSG, outlined five of GOLD-UE’s demands — including a $53,000 annual living stipend, healthcare coverage, subsidized child care, an end to “discriminatory immigration fees” and retention of the right to strike. The email also explained why GOLD-UE has found the College’s latest proposal — which included a $47,000 stipend, coverage of 25% of premiums and creating a dependent health care fund — unsatisfactory and outlined ways undergraduates can express solidarity. According to Ortiz, GOLD-UE leadership reviewed the email before it was sent.
DSG Senate meetings occur weekly on Sundays at 7 p.m. in Collis 101 and are open to all students.
Correction Appended (May 1, 11:28 p.m.): A previous version of this article erroneously stated that GOLD-UE's strike was organized by the SWCD and GOLD-UE. In fact, SWCD did not have a role in organizing the strike. Members of the SWCD attended the DSG meeting solely to communicate, as undergraduates represented by DSG, the impact of the graduate student workers' strike on undergraduate students. The article has been corrected.
