Search

ARCHIVES
CONTACT US
WORLD NEWS

Graduate TAs group petitions for salary increase, benefits

Several UA graduate teaching assistants seeking increased salaries and benefits pleaded their case to the campus community yesterday, collecting signatures at a petition booth from people who agreed with their stance.

More than 60 supporters signed the group's petition, which calls for health and child care packages equitable to those offered to faculty and staff, as well as an increase in salary and other requests, said Wendy Buck, one of the petitioning students.

"That's not bad - there are potentially quite a few more coming," said Buck, a fifth-year graduate student in comparative cultural and literary studies. "This is a good start. I was really impressed."

Buck and four other students will continue gathering signatures today, Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, as part of their efforts to bring to light the labor and pay inequities graduate teaching and research assistants face.

Buck said the signed petitions and a manifesto outlining the group's concerns will be presented to University of Arizona President Peter Likins in December.

UA spokeswoman Sharon Kha said that although the administration is unfamiliar with the group's agenda, their claims would be treated fairly.

"I don't believe we have a position on that," Kha said. "But I think it is fair to say the university is interested in the concerns of graduate students, and would certainly look at any issues they brought to us very carefully."

Buck said a standard work week for herself and her peers generally includes more than 30 hours of lesson planning, office hours and paper grading, as well as completing their own studies.

However, Buck and the other petitioners are classified as half-time TAs, and the UA only officially recognizes 20 of the hours they put in each week.

"The problem is, we only get paid for 20 hours," Buck said. "In my personal experience - and all my friends' - those 20 hours are closer to 30 to 35."

Teaching assistant salaries range from $7,116 to $12,944 per academic year for a half-time assistant, with the average income being about $10,000 per academic year, or $5,000 per semester, Buck said.

Masami Gross, a second-year political science graduate student, said that although her department is relatively well-funded, $5,000 is the minimal amount she needs to support herself.

"I can barely live off of that," Gross said. "I honestly don't know how people survive with dependents. I can barely live off of what I make."

In addition, UA graduate students are not offered a tuition waiver, so they must pay their $1,200 per semester tuition with their teaching assistant income, reducing their net income to $3,800 per semester.

"We effectively give back 20 percent of our salary," Gross said.

Graduate TAs must also pay child care and health care costs for their dependents out of pocket. Graduate students are guaranteed health insurance, but the coverage does not extend to their families.

Both of these are of particular concern to Buck, who is expecting twins.

"It counts - it matters," Buck said of securing health and child care. "What we get paid looks pretty good on paper, but it gets closer and closer to minimum wage when you look closely at it."

Also in support of the teaching assistants is Danika Brown, a graduate teaching assistant in English and a member of the Coalition for Organizing Graduate Students, a UA student group focused on unionizing graduate TAs to gain collective bargaining rights as university employees.

"Buck and the others have hit the nail on the head by identifying one of the major sources of the inequitable treatment of grad students," Brown said. "Graduate students are not considered employees, and are given overwhelming workloads in teaching - in addition to their work as students - with very low compensation and no benefits aside from minimal health care."

Brown said COGS would address these issues, as well as the push to unionize, in a meeting at 2 p.m. today in the Education building's Kiva auditorium.

"On this campus, a good percentage of student contact and teaching hours is performed by graduate students," Brown said. "The message the university sends to its students - graduate and undergraduate alike - is that this institution does not value teaching or students."