Sign this open letter to call on the University of Michigan Board of Regents to ensure that Academic Human Resources (AHR) agrees to transparent and inclusive bargaining with the Graduate Employees’ Organization, a labor union representing 2,300 graduate workers at U-M. There is no time to waste.
Graduate workers face a crisis of affordability at the University of Michigan. Graduate Student Instructors and Graduate Student Staff Assistants are paid $24,053 for teaching winter and fall semesters. This is $14,500 less than a livable wage in Ann Arbor (MIT Living Wage Calculator). Four out of five graduate students are rent-burdened, paying more than 30% of their wages toward rent each month. One out of three graduate students have no summer funding whatsoever. They are deeply invested in the outcome of negotiations.
For that reason, GEO members voted to open negotiations to all members. While AHR claims that there is no precedent for this type of bargaining, in 1975 not only were negotiations between AHR and GEO open to all members, they were also open to the public. Historically, all negotiations between the Lecturers’ Employee Organization (LEO) and AHR have been open to all LEO members. Additionally, multiple sessions 2021 were opened to LEO-invited community members via Zoom. Nothing about GEO’s request for open bargaining in person and on Zoom is unprecedented.
I live in Ann Arbor and that is an unreasonably low wage! You can’t even rent an apartment for that wage around here. University of Michigan is a prestigious university that can afford to pay its grad workers an actual living wage for this affluent area.