Thank you for doing the work to respond with these

I do get that. In the context in which it was brought up, it sounded like a dismissal of the folks struggling on the picket. It's pretty common for folks to accuse them of just all being lazy out of touch rich kids that have never had to work a real job and so it sounded like we were flirting into that territory and I wanted to make it known that such an accusation would be a grave mischaracterization.

I can appreciate you acknowledging the variance in experiences as well. I know a lot of really heart breaking stories among the picketers, especially from our international fellow grads who had been misled about the livability of their stipends in this city. Glad you can make it work; I've had it easier than many as well, living with a partner and getting incredibly lucky on expenses.

Regardless, though the functional compensation, the amount we can actually use to pay rent and feed ourselves, is untenable and needs to be increased substantially (Also, you illegally cut my fucking healthcare and I'll do everything in my power to make your life miserable as possible).

Which is the larger issue. You obviously have to do projects and work to complete the degree, but there's a lot of work you have to do that makes the university money but which isn't necessary or even helpful for meeting that goal. In many PhD programs, this work is first and foremost; you can be reprimanded for spending too much time on your studies because you are cheap labor first and a student second. I didn't realize this before entering grad school. I was shocked how little "school" there actually was in Grad School as a PhD student.

It's common practice in PhD programs to categorize some of this non-degree labor as being worthy of compensation and other work as "just what you have to do". You might TA a few classes and get paid for that, but you might also have to collect data, run studies, or write for things that have nothing to do with dissertation but which the university can submit for grant funding and not get any compensation for this. You wind up spending 80 hrs a week doing all of it, but they get to say "you only actually worked 20hrs ^based ^upon ^how ^we ^define ^your ^labor." Furthermore, after 2 years, you aren't even taking classes. You are literally only there to labor and eventually write a dissertation, so the tuition remission they claim to so beneficently be bestowing upon you is largely a means of putting money back into their own pocket with fairly limited expense actually tied to it.

It's still not such a bad deal getting to do something you really like and immerse yourself in it. But when you don't even make enough to pay rent, and the university exploring you profited over $500 million in two years, it's untenable.

Also lived through poverty. Grew up single parent household. Worked 70 hr/week making less than minimum wage in some cases from the age of 14 to 22, and then continued working crazy hours but for above minimum wage until I started grad school. Don't pull out poverty Olympics shit. Plenty of us have gone through it.

If you're not on board, get out of the way. Thrilled for you if you're one of the 0.01% of grad workers whose experience is a cake walk, but that's highly irregular. Most of us spend far more than that on our work. It's precisely why Temple won't even address adding grievance procedures for being overworked like we've been asking for. They know they can't afford it. The only way my compensation is $62.50 is if I use the figures Temple claims they pay me and then add another $5k.

How are you getting a value of over $40k in compensation? Striking 4th year COG Neuro TA here. My 12 month compensation for everything is $30,816 before taxes or student fees, and approx. $6800 of that is tuition and health insurance which won't put food in my stomach or a roof over my head.

TL;DR is Temple fucks over nurses during a pandemic

Especially at Temple

Support the striking grad workers also currently putting up with Temple's bullshit.

The parking drives me FUCKING CRAZY. Being efficient with your space and backing up appropriately should be a fuckin reflex.

What do you mean by center city? Not disagreeing; I don't know the laws dictating what they can do at all, but I don't usually think of the Queen Village area as center city and I saw them there all the time when I lived there.

Glad to hear you're following us. These are indeed some of the highlights of the Temple Admin Worst Of reel. We're glad to have your support!

This is true. It is insane.

Union member here, They are not pegged to inflation, so the average stipend would be a 3% increase from $19.5k.

Temple is a bad neighbor and a fairly shitty employer. It can simultaneously be the case that the area Temple is situated in is dangerous and needs policing/intervention and that Temple is going about it in a negative or unhelpful way.

EDIT: lmao, y'all are fucking nuts. Why on earth would you want to live amongst a community you feel so at war with? Chances are most of you are MBA alums or undergrads who don't actually live in North Philly or interact with Temple all that much. Here's Temple suggesting they'll deport international graduate workers (1/3 of their workforce, mind you) who strike: https://www.inquirer.com/news/temple-university-graduate-students-strike-20221111.html

Yeah currently. I'm just adding context to explain that hasn't historically been the case.

It's historically a democrat dominated county. The republican majority only occurred for the first time in 2019. Trump really gave Luzerne county an identity crisis we haven't recovered from.

Edit: I grew up there. There's a book written about it (The Forgotten). Our political history is documented and easily accessed on Wikipedia. Not sure why the dislikes, but fuck 'em, I'm right.

I appreciate you pointing that out, even if you're trying to be snarky about it, but I don't know why you would think a few hundred grad students wouldn't know that. This is a labor demonstration regarding the contract between the university and its employees. Graduate Student unions are nationally-recognized, official unions, like any other labor union you might come across. We know what we're arguing. The only things being protested are policies the university can but will not change.

That's a great question and the support is certainly appreciated. I think at this stage, just promoting it to folks that might attend could go a long way. Also keeping an ear out for additional events which are shared on the TUGSA Instagram and Twitter pages. It seems likely additional actions will be required wherein resources will be just as important as time, so sustained interest and support will be a huge help.

I agree. It's not my flyer. I'm just sharing it.

Yeah no worries. It's definitely not clear

The context is that the Temple University Graduate Student Association (TUGSA) is organizing a rally in support of graduate students and graduate student workers (research assistants and teaching assistants). They perform many of the core functions required to make the university run, but don't get paid a living wage and are limited contractually in how they can supplement their income (i.e., not allowed to take side jobs). Most folks rely on personal loans, credit card debt, or other's support to make ends meet. Temple has the money to fix this but won't on principle. Leaving wages as low as they do disproportionately hurts students from low SES backgrounds and guarantees diversity within college positions stagnates.

It's in terms of job/academic security. International workers have many more hoops to jump through and fewer resources to guarantee they can finish their studies without bureaucratic interference.