At bargaining on Friday, HR put forward a so-called 'comprehensive package' of proposals, addressing our entire suite of proposals. The package offered the same 'raise' in the first year of around $100 per month that HR has been offering since before grad workers went on strike. Though HR inched up by a few dollars in years 2 and 3, this sub-inflation raise in the first year represents an effective pay cut for grad workers and will exacerbate the already severe cost of living crisis. HR also made incremental movement on issues like harassment protections and support for international students, yet remains far from what GEO members say is necessary to meet our needs.
On Monday, grad workers took to the streets of Detroit alongside comrades from the Teamsters, UAW, and other allied organizations to celebrate International Workers Day. Workers gathered to hear speeches, poetry and music from dozens of comrades from across Southeast Michigan, reminding us that our struggles are deeply interconnected. GEO president Jared Eno spoke to the group: “We gather today to celebrate working people and the struggle for justice. President Ono talks a good game, about caring about people, about caring about students and workers. But when workers stand up for themselves and what they deserve, he suddenly changes his tune. Ono could change all of this today if he wanted to. The University makes over $400 million every year. That’s profit that workers produce! Bosses hide, they lie, they intimidate and retaliate because they are afraid. And they should be!” Afterward, the group marched through the streets of Detroit, chanting “From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go” and “when workers rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back.”
International GSIs and other grads gathered to picket on North Campus, highlighting the unique challenges IGSIs face, and the proposals put forward to remedy them. The University wants a ‘global campus.’ This is impossible to achieve without our international grad workers, who provide quality instruction in countless departments, and are the majority of language instructors to UM students. With signs and chants in more than nine languages, grads highlighted the demands that will make this campus truly global: a fund to ensure that international grad workers are no longer forced to pay extra expenses out of pocket, robust sanctuary campus policies, and the living wage and dignity that we all deserve.
On Monday, math GSIs picketed outside of East Hall, where a small group of scabbing workers graded the final exams of hundreds of students whose GSIs are on strike. Grading the work of students one has not taught is violation of professional ethics and an infringement on academic freedom. More importantly, it’s not fair to the undergrads whose work is being assessed by instructors they have never met. Katie, a math PhD, explained, “We really wish we were proctoring and supporting our students this morning. We really wish we were in there grading, taking a really careful look at our students' exams and being able to do the nuanced grading that we generally do. We’re sad that we’re not doing that this morning. We’re out here today to encourage people not to do our work for us. The small groups of graders who are scabbing can’t do as good of a job as we would be able to do all together. There’s power in numbers. Replacing our labor today weakens the power of union labor across the university.