Imagine being a single mother living on a salary of less than $400 a month — before taxes.
This scenario is reality for some Graduate Teaching Fellows here on campus, and they welcome the agreement on full individual health insurance coverage, part of their contract with the University. The health-insurance agreement was reached in September.
“It is an issue for all GTFs, but for those with dependents, it is really important,” said Charli Carpenter, a political science GTF and single mother. “It is nice to have that safety net.”
Carpenter is just one of the 1,140GTFs on the University campus who are excited about the decision, which came after controversial negotiations between the University and the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation this summer.
The negotiations began in June, when about 100 GTFs and other students protested outside Chapman Hall in demand of better coverage.
In early September, the University and the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation struck a deal in which the University agreed to cover the entire cost of health insurance for individual employees rather than having GTFs pay $32 per term, which was the original University proposal.
“We recognized that this was a crisis this year because of the dramatic increase in health insurance,” said Richard Linton, negotiator committee member for the University, vice provost for research and graduate studies and dean of the graduate school.
Under the new agreement, just like last year, GTFs will be able to choose from a list of preferred care providers. The University will spend $1.7 million to fully cover individual employees.
“There is a great selection to choose from,” Max Brown, a political science GTF, said. “There is also good coverage for prescriptions and low deductibles.”
Many GTFs expressed approval of the outcome of the negotiations.
“I am personally very happy about it,” said Sarah Hardgrave, a lead negotiator for the GTFs.
But while many are grateful, there are still worries over what will happen in the coming years.
“I am concerned about how the plan is always on a temporary basis,” Carpenter said.
Other GTFs have voiced similar concerns.
“I think it is a good short-term resolution to the problem,” Brown said.
In addition to questioning the stability of the plan, some are beginning to find that the increases are not enough to cover dependents and partners and thus make the plan not worth keeping
Brown said his partner had to be dropped from the plan because she wasn’t fully covered.
“We did the calculations and found that she would be better off with an alternate insurance provider,” he said.
Hardgrave said she regrets that the new agreement is not beneficial for families and dependents, but coverage for GTFs had to be the priority of the negotiations.
“The GTFF’s primary goal was full coverage for employees,” Hardgrave said. “We did manage to negotiate that.”
During negotiations, a number of GTFs set up tents outside Johnson Hall to help bring light to the issue.
Paul Prew, president of the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation, said he credits the outcome of the negotiations to media coverage, faculty support, letters, rallies and political support.
The University receives state funds based on the number of credits that GTFs are registered for. Prew said GTFs, who conduct about a quarter to a third of all undergraduate teaching, had threatened to only register for the minimum number of credit hours, which would have resulted in a large loss of money to the University.
Although the road to reaching an agreement was long, both sides seem to be content with the outcome.
“This does give us one of the best plans in the country,” Linton said. “It’s also important for recruitment.”