USC graduate student workers marched to Bovard Auditorium Thursday afternoon to deliver a letter calling for workplace justice to the University administration. 

The rally began at 1 p.m. and took place on the stage in Hutton Park located behind the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman and Sophia Mendoza, the secretary-treasurer for the National Union of Healthcare Workers, joined student organizers to speak to a crowd of more than 200 graduate student workers according to student organizers. 

Attendees at the rally received shirts that read, “USC WORKS BECAUSE WE DO.”

Following the rally in Hutton Park, graduate students chanted and marched approximately 350 feet to Bovard Auditorium where they taped a letter titled “United for Workplace Justice” to the wall outside of the building. 

Raman, who represents the fourth district on the L.A. City Council, is a “proud union wife” whose husband has also been on strike with the Writers’ Guild of America.

“It’s important that those of us who are in power in the City of Los Angeles need to step up and say, ‘We support you, we see you and we want to make sure that you get the rights you deserve,’” Raman said in an interview with the Daily Trojan at the rally. 

USC holds responsibility as L.A.’s largest private employer, Raman said.

“It’s really important that [the University is] providing an incredible service to the city, that they provide an incredible education to people who are coming here, but they cannot do that on the backs of exploiting their workforce,” Raman said.

Students also chanted, “What do we want? Workplace justice! When do we want it? Now,” and “Who’s got the power? We got the power! What kind of power? Union power!” Councilwoman Raman also led the crowd in a chant that said, “What happens when we fight?” with the crowd responding with, “We win!” 

To finish off the rally, attendees sang “Solidarity Forever,” a union organizing song originally performed by Pete Seeger, Jane Sapp and Si Kahn in front of Bovard Auditorium.  

Graduate students are in the process of negotiating a contract with the University, but feel that their demands are not being heard and that the University is being slow to respond to proposals, said Megan Cassingham, a fifth-year doctoral candidate studying chemistry.

In a statement to the Daily Trojan, the University said their current policies that deal with discrimination and harassment “are best in class,” and “work to protect all members of our community.”

The University also wrote that it is “deeply committed to its graduate students, who have benefitted from substantial raises over the last several years and now receive some of the most competitive support and benefits in the country.”

Stepp Mayes, a fifth-year doctoral candidate studying environmental engineering who spoke at the rally, said the administration has been responding to student activism and organizing. 

“We’ve already won some really great things. For example, we’ve won over six weeks of paid time off. We won real protections from discipline and dismissal, so that, for the first time, registered workers here at USC can’t be fired for no reason,” Mayes said. “And we didn’t win these things because USC admin wants what’s best for us or cares about us. We won these things because we demonstrated our power.”

The Graduate Student Worker Organizing Committee proposed several articles that would provide support for international student workers and protections against harassment and discrimination, Cassingham said. 

“We have been fully engaged with UAW in the ongoing negotiations, and as a result of our mutual good faith efforts, have already reached more than 15 tentative agreements,” the University wrote in its statement.

The graduate student workers’ letter outlined their demands and is available for signature online.

“This letter is encouraging [the] administration to agree to those demands and bargain with us in good faith so that graduate student workers can feel safe and like they’re coming to an equitable workplace every day when we come here to do our jobs,” Cassingham said.

The letter reiterates the graduate student workers’ demands for protections against harassment and discrimination, union security and access, union rights and support for international graduate student workers.

Graduate student workers voted to unionize in February, with 93% of workers supporting the union’s formation.