GSU News #1

The first edition of GSU News (pdf) includes the following:

• a personal story by a GSU member
• a survey of the campus labor situation
• news briefs from other campuses
• a summary of the economic crisis's impacts on universities nationwide
• a member survey asking "what is a university?"
• an anti-academic poem and a fantasy story

Our Health Counts

Coalition Text on Health Care:

As students of the University of Chicago, with a vested interest in the policies pursued by this institution, we are writing to express our concern about the health care currently provided to employees, students, and community members by the University.  We approach this issue with the conviction that health care is not a privilege but a right and, accordingly, that every person deserves equal access to equal care.  The University of Chicago has the responsibility of using its resources to promote the health of students, employees, and community members, and it not currently doing so.  We understand that, in the face of the current financial crisis, certain measures of restructuring are required. We also believe that the University can pursue these changes while recognizing and addressing the value of the students who attend it, the workers who make it run, and the community members with whom it shares a neighborhood. The current situation is not acceptable.  We acknowledge the efforts that the Administration has undertaken towards resolving these issues.  Nonetheless we hold the following as principles necessary for the University of Chicago to fulfill its purpose:

1. The Student Care Center should offer better health services to students, follow a better process for delivering those services, and carry out its work inside a better and more appropriate space. Specifically, all students should enjoy improved access to sports medicine and physical therapy, ameliorated STI testing practices, and enhanced gynecological care.
2. Graduate students who work on campus – as teachers, teaching assistants, researchers, mentors, and at other jobs – should receive year-long health insurance coverage in exchange for their labor.
3. The University of Chicago should direct its resources so as to fairly provide for the health care needs of people who live in neighborhoods around the University. All persons who arrive at the University of Chicago Medical Center Emergency Room for medical care should be equally considered for treatment on location regardless of income and insurance status. 
4. All University of Chicago employees, including Medical Center employees, should be treated with dignity in the workplace and provided with affordable and comprehensive health insurance.
5. Institutional funding priorities should not be determined by any limited decision-making body, but instead be subject to democratic processes inclusive of all potentially affected parties: administration, students, faculty, staff, and members of the community.  These processes should take into account new initiatives, review, feedback, and referendums from these aforementioned groups.  In addition, these institutional funding priorities should include, but not be limited to, decisions regarding health insurance, medical facilities and services, and health and medical funding on campus and its surrounding communities.

Statement on the Milton Friedman Institute

On November 20, 2008, Graduate Students United (GSU) released the results of its first ever membership referendum. Chief among the issues on the referendum was a series of questions regarding whether or not GSU should take a position on the university's allocation of $200 million to the creation of a Milton Friedman Institute (MFI). As referenda allow GSU to make substantive decisions on issues that concretely affect GSU members, the text of the referendum explained that

Critics have argued that [the MFI] was instituted without enough campus input and that it endorses Friedman-style free-market politics. Some GSU organizers feel that we should take a position on it, since it has many implications for campus politics, governance and resource distribution. Others argue that we should stick to our regular organizing campaign, and should be wary of potentially aligning ourselves with a particular ideology.

The vast majority of those who participated in the referendum (73%) supported GSU taking a stance on the MFI, with even more (90%) indicating their personal opposition to this campus institute, a joint project of the Department of Economics, the Law School, and the Graduate School of Business. This broad-based opposition to the MFI reflects the convergence of many issues — from inequitable resource allocation to the corporatization of university governance to the free market policies endorsed and inspired by Friedman. For those of us who spend our graduate careers as lecturers, research assistants, or writing interns, it is an unambiguous slap in the face to see influential sectors of the university successfully lobby administrators to commit at least a hundred million dollars to the MFI, while we remain underfunded, underpaid, and uninsured.

But the sting of this affront is not simply rooted in the ambitions of the university administrators and faculty who sought to cash in on Friedman's reputation, but also in a set of fundamental principles that Friedman himself helped to instill. Over the past four decades, the management of U.S. higher education has changed considerably, with administrators at both public and private universities openly embracing the values and practices of business management, guided by Friedman's famous dictum that the sole responsibility of corporations, provided they stay within the law, is to make as much money as possible. University education has accordingly sacrificed internal democracy in favor of profits.

While this shift in management has seen prestigious institutions like the University of Chicago orient themselves increasingly towards serving the needs of the wealthy, it has also meant that campus life across the board, from the lunchroom to the dorm room to the classroom, has come to rely on cheap, casual, and unorganized labor. Just as this shift is reflected in the reliance on subcontracted dining hall staff and immigrant custodial workers here at the University of Chicago, it is also evident in the prevalence of cheap graduate student labor. The U of C has been able to make its administrators and star faculty some of the best compensated in the country in part by keeping graduate student employees among the worst compensated — even though we teach nearly a third of undergraduate courses (and assist in teaching many more). Underfunding — and at times no funding — combines with stagnant wages, leaving us to compete with each other for limited teaching positions, research assistantships, and fellowship awards, in spite of the fact that these positions lack health care and other basic benefits.

GSU's opposition to the MFI does not stem from a single political ideology; it is not a bold stand on principle. Rather, it is an opportunity for graduate students to stand up for our own interests. Although the MFI has now been made over in the image of a traditional academic institute, with overt ideological orientation removed from its website, it still embodies much of what is wrong with higher education today. Instead of the life of the mind, the love of knowledge, or the good of society, higher education remains driven by the interests of those with deep pockets. This basic fact of campus life will remain until those of us with shallower pockets come together, organize ourselves, and change it.

Statement on Summer 2008 Wage Increases

Dear fellow graduate students,

Graduate Students United would like to convey its appreciation to the Graduate Teaching Committee for taking much needed action to redress the dismal state of graduate teaching compensation at the University. In particular, we would like to express special gratitude to the student representatives on the committee, Jeff Rufo, Kalina Michalska, and GSU organizer Andrew Yale, who devoted their time to making student voices and concerns heard. As many have seen, Provost Rosenbaum has chosen to accept all of the committee's recommendations, which raise compensation for teaching assistants from $1,500 to $3,000, and for lecturers from $3,500 to $5,000. All other grad student teachers have also received raises, with the exception of those paid by the hour.

The committee should no doubt feel proud of the work they were able to do, and the changes represent a significant, material improvement in the quality of life for students working on this campus. We know that we are not alone when we look at our budgets for the year to come with more optimism than before. And after almost ten years without a raise, this move was long overdue.

But much is still to be done. The University is still among a minority of schools nationwide that does not pay health care to its employees — and many of us will have to deduct $1,845 from our new salaries to pay for health care. High advanced residency fees still force students to take jobs on campus to break even. This slows time to degree and creates a labor glut on campus — an odd scenario at a time when faculty and administration want to accelerate our progress toward our degrees. On May 20, GSU submitted a petition of 490 signatures to the administration, demanding that the university waive AR fees and pay for student employee health insurance. We are still waiting for a response.

More broadly, job access and working conditions remain ill-defined and open to abuse. Not all students, faculty, and administrators have the same expectations for interns and TAs — and what one student actually does for $3000 could be radically different from the next. Furthermore, it remains unclear how administrators prioritize student access to necessary jobs while ensuring that all students will remain financially secure. These issues will only become more complex when students funded through the Graduate Aid Initiative begin to seek teaching employment.

Luckily, the solution to these problems is in our hands. Action on student wages only came about when students organized, rallied, wrote letters and taught-out. Provost Rosenbaum acknowledges as much in his report. We all put this issue on the table and made administrators take action. As much as GSU appreciates the hard work of the committee, and looks forward to seeing it continue its work this coming year, we want to give equal thanks to all of the graduate students, from all years, divisions and schools, who came out in support of these issues.

The message going forward should be clear. The administration can be made to acknowledge the rights of graduate student employees — but we have to press the issue. By organizing together, we can consolidate the gains of the last year and ensure that all of our concerns are met. And by acting collectively, we can ensure that graduate student workers will play a sustained and meaningful role in negotiating the way this university operates. It is a mistake to leave graduate student needs solely in the hands of appointed committees that fundamentally have no power to make decisions. To represent our interests, we need to build an employee union with the power to bargain directly with the administration. If we don't seize this chance, graduate student workers will again slip off the agenda and conditions will again be allowed to stagnate. We may all be richer for a time, but we'll be selling ourselves, and future generations of students, very short.