Graduate students nationwide are ramping up demands for the right to form a union. At Northeastern University in Boston, about 100 graduate students and their supporters marched Tuesday to demand the university allow them to hold a union election. This is Ph.D. student Alice Verticelli.

Alice Verticelli: “We are strong because our struggle connects to a broader movement of people on this and many campuses across the country fighting for justice and rights, from dining hall workers to adjuncts to student workers. We are strong because we are many. We are here, and we won’t be gone, until we get our dignity and respect. Thank you!”

Students at Harvard University are scheduled to begin voting on unionization today. In New York, Columbia University’s graduate student union has announced plans to go on strike next week unless the university agrees to negotiate a contract, which it has refused to do for more than a year. The right of graduate students to unionize could be under threat after the U.S. Senate confirmed Trump nominee John Ring to the National Labor Relations Board last week, giving the board that enforces labor law a three-to-two Republican majority.