On March 23, a crowd of thousands rallied on the Diag in support of the Graduate Employees’ Organization to voice their frustration with the University of Michigan administration. After their rally, GEO members — many of whom are Graduate Student Instructors — began a strike, stopping their instructional work, picketing on weekdays and marching on North and Central Campus. Since Nov. 2022, contract negotiations between the University and GEO have been divided on a fundamental issue: pay.
On Aug. 10, GEO voted on whether to ratify the University’s most recent proposal or make a counter-offer. In a press release Aug. 11, GEO announced they have voted to make a counter proposal to the University which accepts the pay raise offered, but also includes pay parity for GSIs at U-M Dearborn and U-M Flint, a child care subsidy, disability accommodations and increased health care coverage for gender-affirming care. The administration set a deadline of 4:59 p.m. on Aug. 4 to accept its most recent proposal, but GEO members voted to take an additional week to review the terms and vote, rather than accept the offer by its deadline. The University maintains that the original offer has expired, despite GEO’s intention to discuss it further.
Cost of living in Ann Arbor
At the beginning of the strike, GEO said its membership voted for a work stoppage in part due to low graduate worker wages, which they argue make Ann Arbor an unaffordable place for GSIs to live.
Since 2017, the cost of living in Ann Arbor has increased from $30,128 to $38,838 according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a tool developed to estimate the minimum wage needed to support a person’s basic needs in a community. The salaries of most U-M graduate students have decreased in value due to inflation over the duration of the contract, going from $24,879 to $24,056. As a result, many U-M graduate students are earning $14,778 less than the minimum standards of living in Ann Arbor as calculated by the LWC.
Music, Theatre & Dance graduate student Robert Wesley Mason is a member of GEO and undergraduate alum from 2009. Mason returned to his alma mater in 2021 at a mentor’s suggestion to complete a doctorate in musical arts. After 20 years of experience as an opera singer, Mason told The Daily he had to pick up a job as a Grubhub delivery driver to pay for his rent over the summer.
“I wish I spent my summer devoted to work that was moving my study forward and (making) me a better teacher and to pursue research that I can share with this institute,” Mason said. “This is my alma mater, which I really love, but that wasn’t the option. Instead, I put a ton of miles on my car … barely (earned) $1,000 over a month … and I know I’m not the only one. I’m not unique.”
In an email to The Michigan Daily, University spokesperson Kim Broekuizen wrote the University believes the MIT Living Wage Calculator is an inexact tool for determining the annual living wage for graduate student workers, who are considered part-time employees according to their contract.
“Most GSIs and GSSAs, but not all, are appointed at 50% effort, which is equivalent to about 16-20 hours per week for only two-thirds of the year,” Broekhuizen wrote. “The calculator differs in that it is used to determine a living wage for someone who is assumed to be employed full-time, 40 hours per week, for the entire year. Unfortunately, GEO has continued to compare the two situations as if they are apples to apples. They are not.”
Mason said they believe that contrary to the number of hours outlined in GEO’s contract, graduate student employees commit to their work full-time.
“Don’t tell me I’m part-time,” Mason said. “I’m not part-time … I didn’t make a part-time commitment to this institute. I made a full-time (commitment) to this institute, and myself and others are struggling.”
The MIT Living Wage Calculator calculated a required annual income of $38,838 for one adult without children to cover typical expenses in Ann Arbor. According to Broekhuizen, the University used this annual figure to estimate an hourly living wage of $18.67, with graduate workers making nearly double that amount per hour.
“According to the MIT calculator, the living wage is $18.67 per hour, not the $38,834 annual salary that you’ve posed in the question,” Broekhuizen said. “Under their current contract, our GEO members working in Ann Arbor earn $34-$35 per hour.”
For graduate workers in Ann Arbor, the contractual hourly wage is $34.69. They receive this wage for a number of hours determined by their employment fractions.
Employment fractions
U-M graduate students are paid via employment fractions that are set by the departments that employ them. A U-M employee’s employment fraction is an approximation of the proportion of their full-time effort. An employment fraction of one corresponds to around 40 hours of work per week, whereas an employment fraction of 0.5 corresponds to around 20 hours of work per week.
According to data published by U-M Human Resources, the median graduate student worker from 2017 to 2021 had an employment fraction of 0.5. There is no published data for 2022 or 2023.
Actual labor hour
The employment fraction system means graduate workers are paid based on an approximation of effort devoted to their job, instead of actual hours worked. In theory, a graduate student with a 0.5 employment fraction works, on average, 16.5-20 hours per week. However, according to data gathered in a survey of graduate workers, some work more or less than their assigned employment fraction.
For example, a graduate student may work 40 hours in one week, but their employment fraction may be 0.5, meaning they will only be paid for 20 hours.
The Daily gathered data from an internal survey conducted by GEO in fall 2021 with 998 respondents. One of the questions is, “During the last full semester that you worked as a GSI/GSSA, how many times did you work more than your employment fraction (e.g. 0.5 FTE equates to 20 hours a week) in a given week for your course?”
Of those surveyed, 64% of the respondents reported working more than their employment fraction in a given week for their assigned course.
Rackham student Yilei Zhang, GEO Steward and member of the Organizing Committee, said many graduate students work past their employment fraction because of the amount of student work they are required to teach and grade.
“It’s just simply because the workload is too large,” Zhang said. “In order to finish all the grading, and the teaching jobs, they have to work more.”
Non-instructional graduate student labor
Graduate student work is not limited to instruction. Ph.D. students must complete coursework, pass qualifying exams and fulfill varying departmental requirements before they become Ph.D. candidates. Ph.D. candidates must write a dissertation to receive their Ph.D. Dissertations are among the first professional deliverables that early career academics produce.
In an interview with The Daily, Rackham student Amir Fleischmann, Contract Committee Chair of GEO, said he believes graduate students should be compensated for research and service in addition to instruction.
“The 0.5 appointments, even the GSI responsibilities, really do not paint a clear picture of the amount of work that graduate students do at this University,” Flesichmann said. “For faculty, their salary is understood to be compensating them for three things: teaching, research and service. Graduate students do all three of those things, and we believe that our pay should be reflected.”
The Daily gathered data from GEO’s platform development survey for the question: “On average, how many hours per week do you spend on ALL labor related to being a graduate student (i.e. teaching, research, seminars, service, etc.)?”
Of the 706 surveyed with a 0.5 employment fraction, 89.4% of respondents spent, on average, more than 20 hours per week on all labor related to being a graduate student — including teaching, research and other responsibilities — and 61.5% spent more than 40 hours per week. The contract between GEO and the University specifies that graduate students are only paid for labor done as GSIs and GSSAs.
Fleischmann said he believes graduate students are not paid in proportion to their academic and instructional contributions to the University.
“(When) we hear from at Provost McCauley that we deserve part-time pay because we’re part-time workers, that infuriates (graduate) students,” Fleischmann said. “It’s incredibly insulting, and it disregards the countless hours of work that we do every single week to make this institution what it is.”
Summer funding and pay variance
In the fall and winter terms, graduate students receive their salary according to their employment fraction. In the spring/summer term, graduate students may or may not receive funding from their departments to cover the costs of living.
Fleischmann saidsummer funding for graduate students looks different across departments.
“The summer funding situation is very different depending on what department in school you’re in,” Fleischmann said. “To the best of our knowledge, around 30% of graduate students don’t have any summer funding.”
Fleischmann said he received $3,000 of summer funding each year for the first five years of his Political Science program and it was raised to $4,000 this year.
“As you can imagine, $1,000 per month is not even enough to really pay rent for a lot of people,” Fleischmann said. “That means that for a sizable chunk of us, the $24,000 is all we have for the entire year. For another chunk, it’s $24,000 plus this additional small nominal summer bonus.”
Using data from U-M Human Resources, The Daily analyzed how employment fractions across departments vary. The median employment fraction across most departments is 0.5 full-time equivalent. Given that employment fractions vary within and across departments, however, there is a resulting variance in pay among GSIs and GSSAs.
Graduate student pay at other universities
The Daily gathered data for current graduate student salaries from other U.S. universities to compare to their respective living wages.
Princeton University provides one of the highest graduate student salaries nationwide, between $47,880 and $50,400 in proportion to its corresponding cost of living of $38,002 in Mercer County. Although Ann Arbor’s $38,838 annual cost of living is comparable, U-M graduate student salaries are around $18,000 less than that of Princeton.
In recent years, many U.S. universities have enacted salary raises as a result of pressure from their graduate students or graduate student unions. At universities with established graduate student unions, such as Columbia University and the University of California system, graduate student strikes led to higher compensation for graduate workers. Princeton University also raised their graduate student stipend after a majority of graduate workers signed union cards, citing concerns over the way a union would affect their relationship with graduate student workers.
Comparing proposals from GEO and the University
GEO’s compensation proposal asks for a salary of $38,537 for all graduate students across the University’s three campuses. GEO first proposed this number in December 2022 and has not wavered.
The University’s compensation proposal offers a 20% raise over the course of three years for instructors on the Ann Arbor campus. It also promises to continue the funding model announced by Rackham Graduate school and outlines provisions for transitional funding and childcare.
On March 24, Rackham officially announced a 12-month funding model for all Rackham Ph.D. students in Ann Arbor. The official announcement came a day after GEO authorized a strike with 95% of its membership voting in favor.
The new model outlines $12,028 of grant funding during the spring/summer term. Adding fall and winter term stipends, Rackham Ph.D. students in Ann Arbor will receive $36,084 every year.
In their Aug. 11 press release Jared Eno, Rackham student and GEO president, said he hopes this counter proposal will lead to an agreement and get graduate workers back into the classroom this fall.
“Given Admin’s stated commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and the small costs associated with these proposals, I hope these outstanding issues will not be a barrier to an agreement,” Eno said. “Grad workers are eager to get back in the classrooms this fall, and we are looking forward to management’s response.”
2022 Managing Online Editor Dora Guo can be reached at doraguo@umich.edu, Data Editor Matthew Bilik can be reached at mbilik@umich.edu and Summer Senior News Editor Miles Anderson can be reached at milesand@umich.edu.