U. of Michigan grad assistants conclude 12-hour strike

March 24, 2005, 6:59 PM


ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) -- Unionized graduate student employees at University of Michigan struck for 12 hours Thursday to call attention to their contract dispute.

The Graduate Employees Organization members approved the one-day strike on a 218-7 vote Wednesday night, the union said. The union said on its Web site that the strike vote followed two days of "emergency bargaining in which the administration refused to respond to significant concessions by GEO." <snip>

"The idea is to spur some movement in negotiations," Dobbie said after the walkout ended at 6 p.m. Thursday. "So far, we haven't seen much movement from the administration at the table."

The 1,600 graduate teaching assistants teach about a quarter of undergraduate classes at the Ann Arbor campus. Dobbie estimated that at least that many classes had been canceled by the time the walkout ended. <snip>

http://www.freep.com/news/statewire/sw113488_20050324.htm

Friday, March 25, 2005

The union of University of Michigan graduate student employees and the administration are locked in a dispute over salaries and benefits. <snip>

The Graduate Employees Organization is proposing to raise the minimum salary rate from $13,977 to $15,300 in the first year of the contract, and increase all graduate student instructor salaries by the consumer price index in each subsequent year. <snip>

The union is seeking automatic cost-of-living-adjustments in the child-care subsidy. It also says its proposal for 'domestic beneficiaries' has a better chance of withstanding a legal challenge related to same-sex benefits. The proposal would provide health care benefits to unmarried heterosexual and same-sex couples whose relationships meet specific criteria. <snip>

http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1111765332102730.xml

It went on for a month or two, and most classes were canceled or met off-campus. The strike didn't end until the TA's were lying down in front of the trucks rumbling into the supply depot. Finally, the Teamsters driving those trucks decided that GEO was a legitimate union and that the TA's meant business. When the Teamsters started honoring the GEO picket lines, the University backed down.

The U really was treating the TA's very badly, and, as I recall, would not recognize their union, GEO. I don't blame GEO them for going on strike to get recognition.

I even saw my Spanish TA from Miami out there on the picket line in really cold weather. I knew that GEO was serious then, because Jorge thought that he was on the edge of death all winter, and for him to get out there for hours singing solidarity forever was really a major event.

at the University of Oregon. In those days, we earned more like $7,000 per year plus a tuition waiver. We came close to striking when the courts ruled our tuition waiver was taxable income -- this would have reduced our monthly take-home income by $100 or more, when it was $600 a month. The university managed to make up the difference.

In those days, graduate teaching assistants at few universities were organized. I was glad that year we were one of them. Universities have a convenient way of treating graduate students as employees when it's to the universities' advantage, and treating them as students when it's to the universities' advantage.