(Photo courtesy of UMass Lowell) The Graduate Student Union recently negotiated a contract with the university to increase wages and benefits for graduate student workers.
Alex Decato-Roed
Connector Editor
As the spring semester draws to a close, many students are preparing to graduate, ready to take the next step and enter the workforce, travel the world, or obtain their masters or doctorate–which also means the daunting, confusing and costly question of graduate school. Yet, many undergraduates may not fully understand what graduate school, or a graduate student worker, does–they only know it will be more work with little pay.
Graduate school is a specialized field of study, including an apprenticeship where you work as a teaching assistant (TA) or research assistant (GRA or RA). Through specialized instruction and in-depth training graduate students receive their Ph.D. or masters degrees. Research assistants perform technical tasks and support their labs’ research endeavors, while teaching assistants create the production, development and execution of coursework at the university. GRAs are usually funded by research grants, whereas TAs are funded through their departments, which have money set aside for a certain number of students to be delegated to those roles. Students working towards their masters degree are considered first-tier graduate student workers and do not receive third-tier pay until they have presented their PhD.
“Most students are working on problems that have an answer. PhD work is all about doing work that doesn’t have an answer,” said Bryan Black, who is an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at UMass Lowell. “That requires guidance and requires sort of an observation and enforcement of boundaries. Otherwise, people can deviate too broadly from what their prescribed path might be, and they probably want it to be.”
“So, one to two classes, then the rest is supplemented by thesis research hours, and that gets them to the nine to 12 hours they need to be counted as full time,” said Black. The university’s stipend associated with the graduate student worker’s contract covers 18 hours per week. “It is not reasonable, within any considerable amount of time to complete a PhD working 18 hours per week. Some professors believe the graduate research assistantship contract is not for their thesis work,” Black stated.
The Graduate Student Union (GEO) at UMass Lowell’s recent contract negotiations with the university increased dental coverage by 40 percent and wages by seven percent for first-tier workers, six percent for the second tier and five percent for the third tier. Although this is a victory for graduate student workers, it is still below a livable wage and on the lower end of pay for comparably ranked schools.
“I pay them that stipend. Plus, I have arranged with the university for a concurrent supplemental contract that pays them additional hours at an inflated rate because they can only work so many hours per week, but many faculty are unaware this can be done, because the university doesn’t broadcast,” said Black.
But this system also leads to some graduate students being paid more in the summer when they’re not under the contract’s stipulations. “We are paid for nine months of our time through these TA or RA contracts, no matter what grant the PI (principal investigator) is pulling money from, that’s the amount you’re paid for those nine months,” said Sabrina Rapisarda, a union officer in the GEO.
“You’ll hear a lot of professors or PIs say but we have summer funding, and that’s always the excuse, right? It’s always: well, they get paid enough in the summer anyway, when not everybody does. And why should you be making half of your salary in three months? Something is wrong with the system, if that’s how you’re operating,” said Rapisarda. “That’s why they call it the feast and famine here because you’re pinching pennies for nine months and then you have all this money in the summer.”
Since many graduate student workers are only in school for two to five years, a major setback for graduate student unions is keeping member engagement. That’s why the GEO has begun to organize monthly brunches or lunches to keep members engaged.
“We need to better make sure everybody knows that we exist and that we’re here to help and file grievances where they’re necessary, and this goes beyond just fair pay, beyond health insurance–it’s about work environment too,” said Rapisarda. “If something is awry, we need to hear about it. Whether that means we file a grievance on their behalf, or we just go straight to the administration and notify them that something is going on. That includes sexual harassment, harassment in the workplace retaliation, all those things. We want to hear about it.”
Razvan Stanescu, who is president of the GEO, stated, “This is what we do as a union. We look out for these things and we kind of let them know and we try to fight for what’s right.”
