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Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

phillymag.com

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Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#101

Post by analog31 »

bjourne wrote: post #12

If waived tuition fees is part of the graduate students benefits do they have to include it in their tax declarations? Do they pay tax on this "benefit"?

Higher education is like what they say about airline pricing: No two people on the plane paid the same price for their ticket. When I was in grad school, we referred to tuition as "funny money." The tuition level is arbitrary and simply represents a worst case maximum. What each student pays is determined by some other means.

There was also a threat to tax the tuition waiver during the Reagan administration, when I was in grad school. It caused a lot of consternation among students, but the university eventually told us that we'd be taken care of, and we didn't worry about it.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#103

Post by fsckboy »

TillE wrote: post #5

As various lawyers have commented on Twitter, this seems like an insanely blatant violation of labor laws. Just a straight up written confession of illegal retaliation. Unless they have some obscure exemption that nobody else knows about, I cannot imagine how the university's legal counsel signed off on this.

> some obscure exemption

for-profit companies do not have to pay strikers wages and benefits while they are on strike. Unions have strike funds they use for that.* When workers go on strike, they want their absence to disrupt the profit making of the business, that is their leverage; but they sacrifice to do it.

Part of the claim in this current "unionize graduate students" drive is that they do work and get paid an income to support themselves, that's why they should be allowed to unionize. I mention that because the headline "students on strike" undercuts that claim, when the grad students want to avail themselves of labor law to make it a regular worker-employer dispute.

Another point, universities are non-profits and would be better able to say "pay them with what?" if they are not working (some courts decide issues on the basis of equity, where ability to pay is factored in. ianal)

(*Did you know that most picketers you see, like next to an inflatable rat outside a real estate development or construction project, are not "employees of the site on strike", but are instead union members who happen to be unemployed from elsewhere and get paid to stand there and do it because it's some income, and helps the union.)

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#104

Post by dsfyu404ed »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #100
sonofhans wrote: post #45

> “Any Temple employee that decides to strike forfeits their pay and complete benefits package,” explained Temple University senior vice president and chief operating officer Ken Kaiser. Here's the problem -- that's a business solution. This decision is intended to benefit Temple the business, not the Temple the university. The administration is too busy filing TPS reports to realize that they're curating something a…

>"This decision is intended to benefit Temple the business, not the Temple the university." More and more it seems like academics are just a front for running a hedge fund - one that gets very favorite tax treatment. Growing the endowment is the most important thing in the minds of the leadership.

Any activity that gets preferential tax treatment is going to be used as a pretext for otherwise low margin business activity because if you can run the pretext part at a break-even you can do the other activity and have an edge over everyone else. Follow the incentives...

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#105

Post by hackyhacky »

munk-a wrote: post #99
calvinmorrison wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Alma-Mater, more interested in hiring administrators than new professors, or even retaining full time professors. Schools a joke, especially this one.

Yup - a relative of mine has been an associate professor there for fourteen years. Giving out tenure is something I'm pretty sure they'll only do if they're backed into a corner.

Associate professors are typically tenured. Did you mean assistant professor?

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#106

Post by munk-a »

neilv wrote: post #94

If these grad students are in research-oriented programs, with an RA or TA job, the tuition might be Hollywood Accounting anyway -- a number the students might not have even seen before, nor even realize exists -- and now it's been weaponized.

Yup - quite the same as healthcare prices in the US. Because all the white collar folks have good insurance those costs are hidden and the insanely astronomical amounts are only ever levied against those without any recourse. The actual graduate program prices are just paper numbers to make accounting go brrrr - and suddenly a bunch of people (and bear in mind grad students are usually super broke to begin with) will need to come up with those BS charges and face escalating late fees if they fail to comply.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#107

Post by LAC-Tech »

As a father of a baby I wonder what higher education is going to be in 20 years time.

I see a fairly long, gradual decline in prestige and effectiveness of universities - at least in the English speaking world - going back a couple of decades at this point. More bureaucratic, more corporate, filled with ever more political extremists. In my jurisdiction at least it's largely used as a pathway for migrants to get a permanent visa - language skill requirements are barely enforced and cheating is rife.

I'm questioning what the value of a piece of paper from such a place will really be in 2040. I question what it is now.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#108

Post by andrew_ »

jrumbut wrote: post #89
andrew_ wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused by that. When my health care ends by termination (of any flavor), I can continue to use that policy number and card for some time. I can then sign up for COBRA and continue my coverage using the same cards. Perhaps there's something else at play, but very strange to suddenly not be able to fill prescriptions.

That's interesting, every time I've left a job the insurance was canceled more or less instantly.

Are you in the U.S.? It's law https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/health-plans/cobra

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#109

Post by ninjagoo »

tptacek wrote: post #64
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point to some of those Twitter comments? I'm honestly curious of which labor laws they are violating. For example, I just did a search regarding healthcare for striking workers, and there is no federal law that prevents cancelling healthcare, to the point that some congresspeople have introduced bills in the last year to specifically outlaw that (but, to emphasize, those are just bills, they haven't been pass…

You can't retaliate against workers for taking a protected concerted action to change something about their workplace. The wrinkle is that Temple's employees are public-sector employees, who are exempt from the NLRA --- but they're not necessarily exempt from equivalent Philadelphia law. You can take health care away from employees (absent a contract) in general, but you can't do it in retaliation for striking.

> The wrinkle is that Temple's employees are public-sector employees, who are exempt from the NLRA --- but they're not necessarily exempt from equivalent Philadelphia law.

It appears that you are correct [1]. There is a Pennsylvanian 1970 "Public Employe Relations Act" Article XII that could cover unfair practices including retaliation but I can't tell if it is still in force [2]. [3] appears to imply that it is still active.

[1] https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/em... [2] https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/LI/uconsCheck.cfm... [3] https://www.dli.pa.gov/laws-regs/laws/Pages/default.aspx

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#110

Post by nitwit005 »

72948957 wrote: post #86

To be honest, I don't really get the point of the strike. The grad students are not only getting a free education, they're also getting paid a stipend on top of that. Grad students tend to have extremely flexible schedules, freedom to pursue their intellectual interests, the ability to attend seminars and travel to conferences, etc. At least in STEM fields, anyone in grad school probably could have gotten a higher-pa…

"Free" education, except that they have to work for the university, and, as you note, they lose out on all the income they could have earned during those years. It's effectively quite expensive.

Some of the complaints from prior strikes were rather basic issues like not being able to afford nessesary dental care.

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