What to know about the grad student assistants on strike at Temple

As the strike by Temple’s graduate student teaching and research assistants nears the end of its second week, their union and the university are still far apart on proposals for pay, health care, and other benefits.

In the meantime, the first-ever strike by the Temple University Graduate Students’ Association, which represents about 750 part-time assistants who teach some core undergraduate classes and also assist professors with research, has garnered national attention.

Here’s what to know about the strike and the contract negotiations:

One of the most significant issues is pay. The union wants to raise the salary for Temple’s teaching and research assistants, who work about 20 hours a week on average for nine months of the year, to more than $32,000, up from the average $19,500 a year that the students receive now. Meanwhile, the university is offering 3% raises throughout the course of the four-year contract, which would ultimately bring the average pay to about $22,000 in 2026.

The union also wants Temple to begin paying for health care for graduate students’ dependents; the school only currently pays for the students themselves.

Union leaders are also pushing the school to increase its paid parental leave, among other benefits.

Students began striking on Jan. 31 after a particularly contentious negotiation session, said Bethany Kosmicki, a past president of the Temple University Graduate Students’ Association who is part of the negotiating committee. Union members had authorized the negotiating committee to call a strike in November.

“The university did not deliver a counter [proposal] and essentially told us that day that unless we were willing to continue to make significant cuts [in our proposal] there was no point in negotiating,” she said at the time. “We just felt that we had no other choice.”

The union and the school aren’t in agreement on how many students are participating in the strike.

Temple officials say that more than 80% of graduate student teaching and research assistants are still working — meaning that fewer than 150 people are striking. But Matt Ford, the union’s lead negotiator, says at least 300 are on strike.

As is expected while striking, students who walked out do not get paid. Kosmicki said the school has also been deactivating students’ health-care accounts.

Earlier this week, Temple also followed through on its threat to withdraw tuition remission for striking students. The tuition remission is worth up to $20,000 annually, depending on how far along the student is in their education. Grad students on strike will be required to pay their full spring tuition by March 9, or face a late fee and a financial hold on their account, according to a screenshot of the notice, posted on Twitter by a striking student.

Temple warned international students in January to speak with an immigration lawyer about whether striking could affect their visa status.

Temple and union leaders began mediation this week.

Kosmicki has previously called the strike “indefinite.” She said in January, when the union first went on strike, that they will stay out until they get a fair contract.

There have been fliers circulating calling for students across the campus to walk out on Feb. 15 to show solidarity with the union.

Many major universities, including Princeton, Yale, and Duke, have boosted pay for their graduate students, either by raising the minimum salary floor or giving students a one-time bonus. The University of Pennsylvania announced in December plans to increase the minimum pay for doctoral students by nearly 25%, starting in the 2023-24 academic year.

Graduate students across the country have increasingly been unionizing to fight for better pay and benefits, including efforts at Yale, Boston University, Florida State, the University of Chicago, and Johns Hopkins, Michael T. Nietzel, a former Missouri State University president, wrote in a Forbes piece in December.

Staff writer Susan Snyder contributed to this article.