UCW-UofL Graduate Workers End Mandatory $400 athletic fee
UCW-UofL Graduate Workers End Mandatory $400 athletic fee
After a months-long campaign by the United Campus Workers (UCW), UofL’s administration announced that the biannual athletics fee will no longer be required. This announcement marks a win for graduate workers in UCW, Kentucky’s higher education union, who started their campaign to end the fee in the fall of 2025 and which has put over $340,000 back into the pockets of graduate workers!
Deanna Robertson, a union member and a fourth-year PhD graduate assistant, said “The athletic fee imposed on all students, but especially graduate students (many of who are employees of the university through graduate assistantships) was beyond the amount of any fees that we have been required to pay after tuition remission. There was no justification for how this fee aided in the student experience at the graduate level as it didn’t provide any physical or mental health support to graduates who are already overworked and stretching their stipends to take care of their basic needs. Many students who I spoke with in my program and in other departments shared that it created a significant impact on their personal finances, limiting their budgets for expenses like health visits, insurance, groceries, etc.”
The administration’s decision came after hundreds of grad workers and students signed our fee petitions, UCW member leaders met with graduate school leaders, and pushed GSC leadership to move on this issue and faculty allies repeatedly raised the issue in the faculty senate.
Sasha Belinova, a graduate worker in the Department of Sociology, said, “UCW graduate workers have spent months talking with graduate workers across campus, building relationships outside of our silos and organizing our campaign. During that time, I heard again and again that graduate workers are struggling to make ends meet, with many already living paycheck to paycheck or relying on high-interest loans. The athletic fee was another way for the university to shift its costs onto students and workers instead of making cuts at the top.”
While this short-term win will help graduate workers relieve some of the financial pressure we face in this affordability crisis, graduate workers at UofL still face a number of hardships in their jobs, including low stipends, substandard healthcare, and increasing federal and state attacks on our research and teaching while the university cuts graduate assistantship lines. UCW member leaders are committed to building a campuswide union for all campus workers and see this win as part of a larger effort to win material improvements for all campus workers.
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United Campus Workers of Kentucky (CWA Local 3821) is the wall-to-wall campus and public healthcare employees union for the Commonwealth of Kentucky representing faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate workers. Together, we are fighting to make positive change for all campus workers and higher-education institutions that truly serve the public good! More information at www.ucwkentucky.org
UCW fee petition can be found at this hyperlink.
Contacts:
Connor, UCW Organizer, Connor@ucw-cwa.org, 502-609-4204