University of South Florida union wins protections for international students

Tampa, FL – On July 10, the Graduate Assistants United (GAU) negotiated with the University of South Florida (USF) Board of Trustees over their union’s contract. It was their seventh round of meetings with university representatives. Protection of international students continues to be a major issue for union members.

During recent negotiations, the two sides reached tentative agreements on nine articles of their Collective Bargaining Agreement, most notably, a nondiscrimination article that would secure gender identity, sexual orientation and immigration status as protected from discrimination.

The University of South Florida campus has become dangerous for immigrant students and staff after the USF Police Department signed onto the 287(g) task force model, directly collaborating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). That means campus police will support ICE efforts to carry out detentions and deportations of immigrants, including graduate assistants who teach in university classrooms.

Through their continuing negotiations with the University, GAU has fought for and won protections for immigrants in their new union contract, highlighting that international students make up a significant portion of the student body at USF.

In addition, union negotiators reached an agreement with the USF representatives that their online system to file Title IX complaints will be changed so that users can select multiple protected classes.

GAU also proposed a 25th article that would ensure that graduate assistants are paid on time, receive itemized pay stubs, and set up a system for emergency payments. There were 47 cases of pay issues from graduate assistants reported to GAU in 2025. GAU received reports of graduate students going without pay for as long as three weeks, causing them to miss rent, as well as reports of HR not replying to emails from union members.

GAU Membership Chair Morgan Amick said “This article represents a systemic issue that must be addressed.”

Last month on June 20, GAU and USF reached a tentative agreement on three out of the 24 articles in the union contract. This includes leave of absence and other absence issues, better grievance procedure and arbitration language, reducing and waiving fees for graduate assistants.

In previous talks, representatives of the USF bargaining team were disrespectful of both GAU and the audience’s time by showing up late to bargaining. They also prolonged caucuses past the maximum caucus time and attempted to speak over GAU representatives.

The next bargaining session will be on July 17 at 1 p.m.

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