TUGSA BARGAINING PLATFORM

Every four years, the Temple University Graduate Students’ Association (TUGSA) negotiates with administration to improve the working and living conditions of TAs, RAs, and other graduate employees. Informed by 351 bargaining surveys and nearly as many one-on-one conversations, the TUGSA Bargaining Platform outlines the key issues impacting grads at Temple and the steps administration must take to address them. Many of these solutions align with what is provided to graduate workers at peer universities. The rest are consistent with the standards already in place for other Temple employees. All are reasonable and achievable.

Our university is at a crossroads. We’ve made important gains over the past several years, but we’re also facing an administration that has not remained committed to Temple’s mission, imposing needless austerity while continuing to profit from the tuition revenue and grant money we generate.

Temple has reported annual profits in the tens of millions of dollars for the past several years. Its endowment now stands at $960 million, an 18% increase since 2022. With the administration boasting that it has more than tripled its enrollment goal for the 2024-2025 academic year, it’s clear that the university’s financial health is strong. Yet, rather than reinvesting in education and research, administration has cut the number of academic employees by 10.7% since 2019. Over the same period, executive and managerial staffing has been reduced by only 4.8%, while administrative offices went $15.2 million over budget between 2019-2023.

Temple’s resources can easily support a fair contract for all graduate workers – so long, of course, as education and research are prioritized. Unfortunately, we have to prepare for administration to draw from the familiar corporate playbook, using any pretense to enact further austerity measures and demand concessions from Temple employees.

Graduate workers have the power to win the contract we deserve, but real change depends on all of us. Through engagement, participation, and a unified voice, we can demand not just fairness, but respect.

RESPECT IS….

ECONOMIC  STABILITY

Since the last negotiations, the cost of living in Philadelphia for a single adult has increased to $46,310 per year. Even after winning significant wage increases, we are still trailing behind, particularly compared to peer universities like Rutgers and Penn State. 

Today, a majority of TAs/RAs spend more than half of their monthly take-home pay on rent and utilities alone. Additionally, working at Temple comes with a cost. Graduate workers are charged up to $2,000 in student fees per year, which must be paid weeks before receiving our first paycheck. With the addition of late charges, these fees only increase the strain already caused by not being paid until six weeks into the semester. 

Ultimately, over 80% of us are forced to supplement our income through external means, such as accruing debt, depleting our savings, and taking on multiple jobs just to stay afloat. Meanwhile, administration makes planning for a way out of this instability nearly impossible. Although many grads are originally told they will receive funding for a certain number of years, administration regularly goes back on these commitments. Without the promise of funding until degree completion, preparing for a future after graduation is made increasingly difficult. 

Administration can and must provide a living wage and stable funding for all graduate workers. We should not have to be put in a position where we must choose between getting our degrees and paying the bills. We deserve to be able to live in the city where we work.

  • A living wage for all graduate workers

  • Guaranteed funding until degree completion 

  • Full remission of all student fees

  • SEPTA/parking passes for graduate employees

  • First fall semester paycheck at the end of August

DIGNITY FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

International grad workers are in an inherently precarious position due to their visa status and inability to be employed outside of Temple. These circumstances lead to the very real potential for exploitation, discrimination, and harassment. While administration has consistently failed to support and protect international students, it can take concrete steps now.

Unlike many other universities, administration does not provide international graduate workers with robust legal and financial support. At the University of Connecticut, the university’s administration promises to make reasonable efforts to re-employ international grads who have lost their work appointment in order to protect their visa standing. At the University of Oregon, international grads are reimbursed for their SEVIS and visa application fees and provided with financial and tax support.

Temple guarantees none of these measures, instead charging “international student fees,” additional costs of several hundred dollars per year that all international TAs and RAs are required to pay in order to work. This, along with the already exorbitant student fees discussed above, must be paid weeks before we receive our first paycheck of the semester. These fees make working at Temple even more expensive for international grad workers than it already is for U.S. citizens.

Administration can alleviate these particular disparities through policies like fee reimbursement, transitional funding, paid vacation time for travel, guaranteed summer funding, and expanded dependent healthcare and childcare for grads who live here with their families. We’ve seen from other universities that these changes are possible and actionable. Administration needs to follow suit to fully support international graduate students.

  • Full remission of international student fees

  • Reimbursement for SEVIS and visa fees

  • Reasonable paid sick and parental leave

  • Guaranteed vacation time during summer break

EXPANDED HEALTHCARE AND BENEFITS

Every semester, administration creates needless obstacles that prevent grads from accessing the 100% coverage we are meant to receive. Administration regularly fails to provide appointment letters on time, leaving many with no choice but to postpone enrolling in their healthcare. This academic year, Independence Blue Cross changed our dental coverage without warning and failed to properly bill those with dependents and those on partial appointments.

Administration neglected to notify those affected about these changes, leading to mass confusion about our coverage and billing. As a major client of IBX, Temple has the power to ensure that our insurance coverage is always correct and our billing accurate and on time. Instead, they leave us with the burden of effectively administering our own health insurance.

Whether for common ailments, chronic conditions, reproductive health, or gender-affirming care, administration must guarantee that all grads have access to the healthcare services we need, and ensure that we retain that standard of care regardless of any changes IBX makes to its specific coverage options.

Among grads who have considered having children, only 11.8% said Temple’s current policies were adequate. While we made progress with a 25% dependent subsidy in the last negotiations, we remain committed to our initial demand of 100% coverage for all grad workers and their families. Administration can meet this goal for less than the cost of Provost Gregory Mandel’s yearly salary.

We are the only union out of eleven on campus that receives 100% healthcare coverage, and we refuse to accept any cuts to this hard-won basic right. Graduate workers deserve the necessary resources to take care of our physical and mental health and that of our families.

  • Quality, consistent healthcare coverage for all 

  • Full healthcare coverage for dependents

  • No changes to healthcare coverage offerings

  • Subsidies for childcare 

  • Expanded parental and sick leave

PROFESSIONAL WORKING CONDITIONS

Administration demands professionalism from graduate employees, but fails to fulfill its basic responsibilities as an employer. Instead, they shift the burden onto graduate workers, leaving us to navigate late hiring paperwork, conflicts with supervisors, and even missed paychecks. We receive no pay for training or course prep, and often deal with last-minute changes to our work assignments with no compensation for work already done.

Graduate workers are already stretched thin, balancing the demands of our work assignments with academic expectations and personal responsibilities. Administration unilaterally determines how our hours are calculated and assigned, and we’ve seen their interpretation of the workload guidelines deliberately manipulated to fit their bottom line. Currently, over 75% of TAs/RAs have worked beyond their contracted hours.

Instead of treating us as a disposable source of cheap labor, administration must provide the resources and support necessary to succeed in our roles, and ensure that we are fairly compensated for all of the work that we do.

  • Timely work assignment notification

  • Appointment letters processed before work begins

  • No unilateral changes to workload guidelines

  • Sufficient office space for all graduate employees

  • Guaranteed lab and workplace safety

  • Transitional funding for grads needing to switch labs

  • Academic freedom/intellectual property protections

  • Compensation pay for training and course prep

RIGHTS AND REPRESENTATION FOR ALL

Administration often speaks of community involvement in university policy and goals, but we have seen how decisions are consistently made at the very top by an out-of-touch Board of Trustees advised by corporate consulting firms. Their perfunctory committees and town halls have yielded few results for community members who continue to experience frustration with university policies. Instead, the primary means for Temple employees to participate in the bettering of our livelihoods and our university is through one of the eleven labor unions on campus. However, administration deprives many graduate employees of the right to take part in this process.

Collecting data and conducting lab research, setting the stage for musical and theatrical performances, assisting student athletics with planning and logistics, preparing art studios for course instruction and more – hundreds of graduate students are hired to perform essential duties that help our university function. Yet administration bars many of those who perform the above duties from union representation and the opportunity to participate in real decision making on campus.

Administration excludes Academic Interns and Graduate Externs based on an arbitrary assessment of the kinds of work they perform, while many Research Assistants are excluded due to a complicated and overly bureaucratic process known as Direct Academic Benefit (DAB). DAB is unique to Temple: no other universities use DAB or a similar procedure to classify research assistants. RAs at other schools enjoy the same rights and privileges regardless of what they plan to do with the results of their research. None of us should have to make a choice between using our research as intended and having our rights as employees.

The above issues are compounded by the administration’s flawed and controversial budget model known as Responsibility Centered Management. RCM is based on colleges and departments competing for enrollment rather than working together as a unified institution. For over ten years, this has forced cash-strapped department leaders and PIs in labs to make needlessly difficult decisions regarding graduate funding, raises, and work hours. This budgetary model will  exacerbate possible cuts to the NIH and other federal agencies that provide researchers with grants, as departments are forced to compete for a dwindling pool of resources. Meanwhile, central administration continues to expand, overspend, and sit on millions of tuition and grant dollars that could be invested in the teaching and research that makes Temple what it is. Administration needs to get its finances in order and stop budgeting the balance on our backs.

In uncertain times like these, all graduate workers deserve to have a protected voice in advocating for themselves and their colleagues, and a real say in how our university should navigate the difficult years ahead.

  • Full union protections for all grad workers

  • Include all grad workers in TUGSA’s bargaining unit

  • End direct academic benefit (DAB)

  • RA raises come from central admin, not lab budgets

  • Eliminate RCM budgeting model

  • Two-year collective bargaining agreement

The only way to win the contract we need — and deserve — is through membership. If you support this platform and are not yet a member, join today at tugsa.org/join.