The Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation staged a “funeral” Thursday, commemorating the recent “death,” or expiration, of its contract with the University.
The GTFF’s contract with the University expired March 31, but currently the University is operating under the provisions of the expired agreement. The GTFF and the University have been in active negotiations since November, but have yet to reach an agreement.
The protest started quietly at 2:30 p.m. in the EMU Amphitheater, seeming almost to mock the solemnity of a funeral. Protesters brought out a miniature coffin and carried black signs shaped like headstones that read “GTFF Contract RIP” and “In Loving Memory …”
“(The lack of a contract) fundamentally shows that we are not being respected for the work we do,” former GTFF President Chris Goff said in a speech at the rally.
Current GTFF President Eric Lindgren, a graduate student in political science, also spoke.
“Currently the University is offering us no increases in wages,” he said. The crowd responded with a disapproving “Boo!”
After the two brief speeches, nearly 20 GTF protesters lined up and dropped copies of the contract into the miniature coffin to “pay their last respects.” Goff yielded a few laughs as he pretended to
collapse into a fit of grief in front of the coffin.
After the darkly comedic ritual was complete, nearly 40 protesters followed the mock funeral procession up East 13th Avenue to the steps of Johnson Hall, while four pallbearers carried the coffin into the building and left it outside University President Dave Frohnmayer’s office.
“I told the President we brought him a little gift,” Lindgren said to the crowd after he walked out of the building.
The GTFF has been petitioning for decreases in the student fees that GTFs are required to pay as students of the University, which, according to the GTFF, amounts to 9 percent of the average
annual salary for graduate employees.
“Our proposal is that they eliminate fees,” Lindgren said as the protest started. “We don’t think we should have to pay 10 percent of our wages back to the University.”
Goff later added that GTFs essentially “have to pay for the materials we teach with.” But University Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies Richard Linton, who is a member of the University’s bargaining team in the negotiations, responded after the protest, saying, “Most institutions don’t subsidize fees for graduate students.” Linton also added that the situation for GTFs at the University is quite good relative to GTFs at the University’s eight other peer comparator institutions. These are institutions that the University uses to measure comparative faculty salaries and include University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Iowa and the University of California­Santa Barbara.” If you look at total compensation (salary, benefits, tuition waivers) … when we compare ourselves to our peer comparator institutions … we’re currently ranked third (in GTF total compensation),” he said. “Three out of nine is very competitive.”
Another major issue of contention is that certain University departments are hiring undergraduates at hourly wages to fill positions typically filled by GTFs.
Linton said the practice provides undergraduates with “important educational experiences” and cited such positions as undergraduate peer mentors or lab assistants.
According to Linton, the positions are often ones that could not be filled by a GTF because the posts require far fewer hours than the minimum hours for a GTF. Departments also turn to undergraduates when the graduate-student pool for a particular department has been exhausted, he added.
Lindgren said the practice might decrease the quality of education for undergraduate students. It also, he said, undermines the GTFF and deprives the employees of the benefits of union membership and GTF status, which include tuition waivers, benefits and access to the grievance process and collective bargaining.
“Undergrads might wonder about the quality of their education when they’re essentially being supervised by undergrads,” Lindgren said. “It undermines our union.” The negotiations will continue later this month, with the next bargaining session scheduled for April 19. Lindgren said the University’s current offer includes a $40, or 15 percent, fee reduction. However, the controversial practice of hiring undergraduates remains largely unresolved, Goff said.
The earliest the GTFF could strike is June 30, according to state law.