U-M graduate instructors stage walkout

Detroit News ^ | March 11, 2002 | Detroit News

[ThinkPlease]

ANN ARBOR -- Graduate assistants at the University of Michigan walked out Monday morning to protest the lack of progress in contract negotiations with the university.

Negotiators for the university and the Graduate Employees Organization, which represents 1,600 graduate student instructors, negotiated until 4 a.m. Monday.

[ThinkPlease]

Heh. Having been a grad student in the past, these folks are WAY out of line. The two proposals that they are striking over: 5% raise each of the next three years, and the child care issues are going to raise havoc on that campus, if allowed. Consider that neither staff nor faculty get free child care, nor have there been many 5% raises in recent memory. And they want this coming off a recession year. Yeah. Go ahead and strike. This could rebound and hurt them if they are not careful.

[Exigence]

I, too, have been a low-paid grad student. However, my pay, even taking into account inflation, was *considerably* lower than those who are considering striking. And I paid for my own child care costs.

It's part of the trade off: education for teaching. Considering the value (and I'm not talking monetary value) of a grad education, it seems a fair trade off to me. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

[Jerrybob]

Maybe they won't ever come back. That would be a real plus for the students.

[vooch]

At Columbia the UAW has been organizing the grad students......I think the vote is this week or the next

[Moleman]

Ann Arbor is the city of evil

[Tacis]

It is only fair. The TAs (teaching assistants) to all the pay and benefits and as few duties as the tenured faculty they are replacing. No where else in America do employers hire people to do the work that others were hired to do. This happens only at the university level and especially, in public universities. It is just another reason why public universities are so very far to the left, the tenured faculty feels guilt and knows it should feel guilty for getting so much for doing so little. In attempted justification, they have to at least prtend that they want others to have as easy a situation as they.

[ThinkPlease]

It is only fair. The TAs (teaching assistants) to all the pay and benefits and as few duties as the tenured faculty they are replacing.

Is it? The TA's don't get as little as you think. At the most, in total Pay (not including medical bennies), they get $16,5 per year+a tuition waiver for anywhere from $5k to $20k per year. That means most of them (since out-of-state students get more, and 75% of grads are out of state) get paid $36,5 per year. Where else can you get that kinda pay just out of college? Certainly not in the liberal arts field, which is where at least half of them come from! And then they want child-care?

Secondly, faculty actually do more than you think. You'd be surprised...

[Jonathon Spectre]

Oh, no, a bunch of leftists walked off the job! Quick, do whatever is necessary to get them indoctrinating and brainwashing again!

[Exigence]

Secondly, faculty actually do more than you think. You'd be surprised...

Yes, they do. At research institutions, where you are likely to find GTAs, the profs must spend a considerable amount of time on their own areas of research if they want to be tenured. As you obviously know, not *all* profs are liberal. Those doing ag research, for example, tend to be very conservative and their research tends to be extremely practical and necessary -- and not at all the equivalent of what their GTAs are doing.