Having just finished up negotiations here in Ann Arbor, I have watched with interest the escalating tensions in the Graduate Employees Union negotiations at MSU. I also find the indifference and contempt with which MSU’s administration is treating the university’s teaching assistants appalling.
In last Friday’s Lansing State Journal, MSU Trustee Faylene Owen said she understands “where (the TAs) are coming from … I also understand, as a board member, that we are very short of funds here at the university.” Although I understand Owen and her fellow board members need to keep budgets in check, I wonder where that sense of frugality was when they voted to raise MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon’s annual salary from $340,000 in 2005 to $520,000 this year, a 53 percent increase. In comparison, MSU’s TAs have received raises totaling 4.04 percent during that same time period. While I recognize MSU’s need to bring Simon’s salary in line with peer institutions in the Big Ten, I fail to see why its administrators do not see the same urgency to bring their TA salaries — which languish at the bottom of the Big Ten — in line with peer schools.
This year, Simon received a 5 percent raise, which is what the GEU is proposing for its members. Instead, the MSU administration, when it bothers to show up on time for negotiations, has offered a 1.75 percent raise, which fails to keep pace with inflation. What’s more, according to the Office of Planning and Budgets, MSU’s General Fund budget — not including sports — was $876 million last year. Based on a high estimate, TA salaries made up less than 2 percent of that budget. The argument that 5 percent raises for TAs will break the MSU budget is laughable.
My football loyalties may lie with the Wolverines, but I have great respect for my fellow graduate colleagues and scholars who are Spartans. It angers me greatly to see their own administrators treat them like neglected younger siblings when it comes to their pay and benefits. Therefore, my colleagues and I will be tailgating in support of their picket lines today.
Patrick O’Mahen
University of Michigan doctoral student who served as the communications chairman of the graduate employees during contract negotiations at U-M
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