Over 100 demonstrators from two separate but simultaneous Labor Day rallies chanted and called just blocks from each other in downtown Bloomington on Monday.
The Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition held a union card signing event at Sample Gates, while 50501 Indiana hosted a protest at the Monroe County Courthouse. The latter protest also included a diaper and formula drive, postcard writing and other booths.
Around 70 people gathered at Sample Gates to sign or renew their union cards, lay out plans for the year and push for the IGWC’s six-demand campaign, which includes calls for expanded health benefits and a pay raise to meet Monroe County’s livable wage of $43,605, according to MIT’s livable wage calculator. Graduate workers currently make $24,000, according to the IGWC website. Graduate workers received a $1,000 raise in January.
The IGWC also continues to fight for official union recognition from the administration, as it has since its inception in 2019.
“IU should be the product of the students, faculty, staff who are learning, teaching and researching here,” Ann Campbell, co-chair of the IGWC Coordinating Committee, said. “Under the pillar of our university, we are demanding the protection of our degrees.”
Campbell referenced Indiana’s House Enrolled Act 1001, which went into effect July 1 and requires programs to meet a quota of graduates to remain active. Bachelor’s degree programs needed 15 graduates and associate’s degrees needed 10 to meet the bill’s requirements. Across the IU system, 249 programs were affected by the law, with 116 of those at IU Bloomington. Twenty-two degrees were eliminated, and 31 will be eliminated after currently enrolled students graduate. Additionally, 63 were suspended with plans to merge or consolidate programs.
Speakers throughout the IGWC event also expressed grievances with a bureaucratic glitch in August, first reported by The Herald Times, that left an unknown number of graduate workers with lapses in their healthcare coverage. In emails acquired by the Herald Times, IU Associate Dean for Graduate Education Elizabeth Dunn said that the university would cover the inactive period once policies were reactivated.
IU American Studies graduate student Sasha Weiss has a mutation in his tumor suppressant genes. It increases his risk of developing multiple types of cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute, and requires him to visit an oncologist every six months. He shared his problems with the administration’s insurance system with the crowd Monday.
“It didn’t affect Pam Whitten; it didn’t affect Shrivastav,” Weiss said. “It didn’t affect any of the admin. Imagine what it would look like, what IU’s response would be if admin’s benefits were the ones who got cut because of a bureaucratic oversight.”
Around 1:30 p.m., over 100 demonstrators from the 50501 protest against President Donald Trump marched down Kirkwood Avenue, past the IGWC protest at Sample Gates, and back down to the courthouse square. The precession stretched from Fat Dan’s Deli to Nick’s English Hut on Kirkwood, gathering a mix of supportive cheers and a handful of jeering from passerby wearing American flags.
50501 is a nonprofit group that has organized multiple nationwide protests against the Trump administration since the group’s creation in January 2025.
The demonstrators chanted “No justice, no peace, fuck the police,” and “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA,” as they crossed and eventually stopped traffic on South Walnut Street for over five minutes, through multiple traffic light cycles as multiple cars honked.
One 50501 protester stood with his bike in front of a vocally displeased driver while stopping traffic. Their conversation continued to escalate as other cars stopped on the street joined in on the honking and drivers yelled from their respective vehicles. As the biker continued to yell with the driver, four 50501 protesters spread across the road, aiding the stoppage before eventually retreating to the courthouse lawn.
“They’re in Trump’s hip pocket,” one protester, Lori Stumpner, said.
Stumpner and fellow Bloomington resident Jamie Broker helped organize the protest, with Broker leading the march through town. She carried an upside-down American flag and was one of the protesters who blocked South Walnut Street.
“I hope they see that we’re fed up, that we’re done with this,” Broker said. “We’re over it, we want our democracy.”
