The New Mexico State University graduate workers union served a prohibited practices complaint to the school.
The Graduate Workers United Union is alleging that the university stopped deducting union dues from some members’ paychecks without notifying them.
Caedmon Ragland, president of the union, said that this is not a new issue for them.
“Since October of 2024, we have noticed people dropping off of our dues deductions. We keep track of this data and we watch our membership numbers go down month to month even when no one has withdrawn dues. Of course since we are graduate workers this is something we pay attention to anyway because people graduate. But we have verified 71 workers this semester who have signed cards, who we have records of signing cards who are not on our rolls as due paying members right now,” Ragland said.
In response to the alleged dropping of deductions, Ragland and a group of union members held a brief rally outside of Hadley Hall on the NMSU campus and then walked in to hand deliver a prohibited practices complaint to the NMSU president's office.
Ragland says that they hope to get some of the money back that they should have gotten.
“When we are talking about the numbers we are talking about which is around 70 people, if you take that over months and months and months, since October of 2024 we are estimating that the amount of money that we have been deprived of as a result of this could be in the realm of $10,000 or more,” Ragland said.
Jeremy Doniger, a union member, said that he joined the union to help the broader labor movement in the country but his dues were ended without his knowledge or consent.
“I didn't find out my dues had been dropped until I heard from Caedmon about it. Again there is a big list of people who that has happened to but I was not aware until someone had told me,” Doniger said.
KRWG Public Media reached out to NMSU for comment but did not receive a comment in time for publication. This story will be updated when we receive a response.
