Temple grad students overwhelmingly vote down proposed contract, strike continues

Members of the Temple University Graduate Students Association overwhelmingly voted down a tentative agreement Tuesday that was reached last week, meaning their strike that started Jan. 31 will continue.

Both sides noted they were willing to return to bargaining soon, with the union saying as soon as Wednesday.

It’s unclear what will happen next, but it surely means more tumult for a university already in crisis as it copes with the aftermath of the shooting death of one of its police officers.

The union represents 750 graduate teaching and research assistants, not all of whom are members of the union. Nearly 400 graduate students voted, roughly 83% of the membership, with 352, or more than 92%, nixing the offer, and 30 accepting it. The offer included a 10% raise in the first year, 5% the second, 2.5% the third, and 2.25% the fourth, the union said. It offered nothing toward health-care insurance for members’ dependents. It also included a one-time payment of $1,000 to each student covered by the agreement and improvements in parental and bereavement leave, the university said.

“Percent increases are very misleading when you’re talking about low wages because even high percents will only lead to small increase in dollar amounts,” said Bethany Kosmicki, a member of the negotiating team and past TUGSA president.

The raises by the end of the contract would only bring the average salary up to $23,500, which is not enough to live on in Philadelphia, Kosmicki said.

“TUGSA members were presented with the opportunity to vote on the agreement,” said TUGSA contract negotiations team member Laurie Robins. “Their vote shows that the terms of the agreement are insufficient to meet the needs of our members and tells the university administration that they need to offer a truly fair contract.”

The university said it was disappointed in the vote.

“We’re incredibly disappointed,” said Ken Kaiser, Temple’s senior vice president and chief operating officer, who has been with the university for more than 30 years. “It’s the first time in all my years that I can recall when a tentative agreement that was agreed to by the leadership of the university and the union was not ratified.

“We’re committed to getting back to the table and hopefully closing any of the gaps and keeping the lines of communication open.”

» READ MORE: Temple University and striking graduate students reach tentative agreement

Steve Newman, former president of the Temple Association of University Professionals, the faculty union, said he believes it’s unusual for a tentative agreement to be voted down, especially so decisively.

“But just because something is unusual doesn’t mean that it is wrong,” he said.

Kosmicki said the union’s contract negotiating team did not take a position on the tentative agreement, but agreed to put it to a vote at the university’s request.

Jeffrey Doshna, current president of the faculty union, said students are sending a clear message.

“Clearly the administration has to do better than what it was offering,” he said.

The university announced Friday night that it had reached a tentative agreement with TUGSA, which it said included a one-time payment in addition to raises in each of the four years of the contract. Graduate students would retain free health insurance for themselves, the university said. They also would have had tuition remission restored and been able to return to work, the university said.

TUGSA said in a news release Saturday that it had agreed to put the university’s counterproposal before its members in the form of a tentative agreement. Members voted over the last two days.

» READ MORE: Striking graduate students feel the toll of Temple's tactics but remain steadfast

“Despite the university offering to reinstate benefits that it cut during the strike in this tentative agreement, the terms of this proposed contract still fail to meet our basic needs,” said TUGSA member Amanda Whitehead, a longtime instructor in the dance department. “These benefits should’ve never been cut in the first place.”

The two sides have been negotiating for more than a year. It was the first strike in TUGSA’s approximate 20-year history.

The two sides had been far apart on benefits and wages.

The average pay for a teaching and research assistant at Temple who work part time is $20,700 a year, according to the most recent numbers from the university, and the union had sought to raise it to more than $32,000, an increase that it said was a necessary cost-of-living adjustment. The university had been offering 3% raises over the four-year contract.

The union also had been asking the university to pay for health insurance for students’ dependents. Temple had been paying the full costs for students, but nothing for their families.

The strike took on a divisive tone after the university decided to withdraw tuition remission for the striking graduate students, telling them they must pay their spring tuition bills in full by March 9 or face a $100 late fee and the inability to register for future classes. The school also stopped paying for their health insurance, which at first caused a panic among students who found themselves temporarily cut off.

» READ MORE: How does Temple grad students’ pay compare to other schools?

While the university has said only 20% of graduate students went on strike — the union contended it was twice that amount — there was some disruption of classes for those whose instructors did walk out. Many of the classes had been moved online to accommodate the schedules of new instructors and to deal with reported intimidation of students and instructors, the university said.

The unrest at Temple came amid increasing calls for better pay for graduate students nationally and followed strikes at several other colleges, most recently the University of California. The University of Pennsylvania last semester passed a nearly 25% increase in its minimum pay for doctoral students — the largest one-time boost in the school’s history. Starting in 2023-24, the minimum stipend will rise from $30,547 to $38,000.

Some of Temple’s peer colleges pay graduate students more. At Pennsylvania State University, graduate assistants with 20-hour-a-week appointments, 36 weeks a year, earn an average of $24,822 annually.

The Philadelphia Inquirer is one of more than 20 news organizations producing Broke in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on solutions to poverty and the city’s push toward economic justice. See all of our reporting at brokeinphilly.org.