The university has 15 days to respond to a grievance filed by the Graduate Employees Union on Friday.

The union charged the university with intentionally misinterpreting a clause in a contract signed last May.

The clause regulates salaries for teaching assistants - and newly appointed union President Scott Henkel said hundreds of TAs are being underpaid.

“We only know of three or four TAs who are receiving their rightful salary,” Henkel said.

The clause in questions explains the requirements for TAs to receive a pay increase - an advancement that can mean up to $700 a year more.

Nearly 150 teaching assistants have signed the grievance.

Henkel said MSU is violating the contract because colleges within the university are increasing the required number of semesters needed to obtain a pay increase. The contract states that “at least” four semesters of experience and earning a master’s degree entitles TAs to more pay, he added.

“We’re just asking universities to stick to the language they agreed to in the contact,” he said.

The colleges named - the College of Arts and Letters, the College of Natural Sciences and the College of Social Sciences - have minimum experience requirements of eight or twelve semesters - at least double the minimum four semesters required in the contract.

Despite the grievance, which was filed with Provost Lou Anna Simon, Henkel said he is confident the university will correct the situation.

“This is the moral and correct thing to do,” he said.

The Provost issued a statement Friday, noting that the university does not comment on the specifics of any grievances.

“I have received the information from the GEU and will address it in accordance with the procedures established in the graduate employees contract,” she said.

The grievance comes after a day-long strike on April 25, in the midst of negotiations between the university and the union. The contract was signed May 16.

Duncan Woodhead, co-chair of the union’s grievance committee, said the way the university chooses to handle this first grievance with the contract is going to set the tone for the rest of the year.

“It will really establish the nature of the relationship between the university and the union,” he said.

The university has 15 days to arrange a meeting with the union to discuss the grievance and 15 days after the conference to take action, Woodhead added.

A TA’s pay is based on a three-tier salary system.

And since Woodhead is a TA with 10 semesters of experience, he has a vested interest in the grievance.

“With the contract, I was expecting level-three pay,” he said, hoping to earn the highest wage. “But it hasn’t come to fruition yet.”

Woodhead said that since TAs teach about one-third of the classes at the undergraduate level, he hoped the university would treat them with due respect.

“If they don’t - what that says about the university is that they don’t value the work TAs do,” he said.

Tara May can be reached at maytara@msu.edu.