Hundreds of graduate workers at the University of Rochester say they are planning to strike if the university delays signing an election agreement allowing those workers to form a union.

State, city and labor leaders joined those graduate workers to announce their intentions Tuesday.

They say about 1,700 graduate workers across all three U of R campuses perform essential duties while earning as little as $15,000 per year.

In a press release on Tuesday, the workers say other concerns include health insurance and what they call a "lack of support for international students, and insufficient protections against discrimination and harassment," which they say has increased with recent moves by the Trump administration on immigration and higher education.

"U of R grad students are readers, graders, TAs, researchers. We do important intellectual work for the university," U of R PhD candidate Claire Becker said. "And to have them essentially turn away and say, 'That's not work. You don't deserve the right to be considered workers and to form a union,' is pretty demoralizing."

Spectrum News 1 has reached out to the University of Rochester and has not yet heard back.