Teaching assistant Xianwei Meng grades work Tuesday afternoon while protesting in a sit-in in the lobby of the Administration Building. Meng said he feels disrespected considering the effort he puts into his job.
Brian Watkins sat on the floor of Administration Building’s lobby Tuesday balancing a laptop on his legs, a textbook on his stomach and a stack of quizzes to be graded by his side.
But Watkins was doing more than grading — he was demonstrating. And he wasn’t alone.
About 150 teaching assistants joined Watkins on the floor for the Graduate Employees Union’s “grade-in,” a sit-in-style demonstration that drew attention to the union’s negotiations for a new contract with the university.
Watkins, a third-year anthropology graduate student and TA for ISS 210, Society and the Individual, said his reasons for attending were simple.
“I came out to show support for the contract negotiations that have been going on,” he said. “I was concerned that if we didn’t have a significant showing … the administration wouldn’t have respect for our issues.”
The grade-in was meant to show university administration how much work TAs do in an average day, said Sarah Hamblin, the union’s vice president for contract negotiations and enforcement.
“We want the administration to recognize that so that we can get the kinds of wages and benefits that we deserve,” Hamblin said.
Watkins brought more than 100 quizzes to grade, as well as a textbook to pull questions for writing an upcoming exam.
“I get the feeling that not a lot of people understand what TAs do,” he said.
“When there’s that lack of understanding, you can justify certain policies that ordinarily you can’t justify, such as no parking north of the river, or much more seriously, restrictions in health care, like no vision insurance.”
While the grade-in had been planned weeks in advance, recent tensions in the union’s bargaining sessions added new meaning to the event, Hamblin said.
“MSU has been engaged in regressive bargaining since the beginning,” she said.
Hamblin said the university bargaining team has been showing up late to negotiations and is still getting paid for the full two- to three-hour bargaining meeting.
Multiple calls made to Karen Klomparens, dean of the graduate school, were not returned Tuesday.
While Sarah Lanius, information officer for the union, said that it would be a “last resort,” the union could meet to discuss a “strike platform” and consider job actions such as withholding grades and staging a one-day walkout.
“If we could come to an agreement today, we’d be thrilled,” Lanius said. “But if not, we’ll do what we need to do to get what we need in our contract.”
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