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Temple University has offered the graduate student workers’ union a tentative agreement that could end a strike that began Jan. 31.
“Temple University and the Temple University Graduate Students’ Association [TUGSA] reached a tentative agreement on a new contract tonight,” Ken Kaiser, Temple’s senior vice president and chief operating officer, announced Friday in a news release. “We are pleased with the outcome and eager to welcome our students back to their teaching, research and studies.”
“The tentative agreement provides for an increase to minima this year, a one-time payment effective this month, and increases to minima in the upcoming three academic years,” Kaiser said, without providing further details on these proposed pay increases.
“The parties agreed to provide striking students with health cost reimbursements and to reinstate tuition remission,” he said. “TUGSA agreed to withdraw pending claims of unfair labor practices.”
As of the strike’s second week, Temple had cut off strikers’ health coverage and was demanding they pay tuition by March 9. TUGSA and the university were also disagreeing about what percentage of graduate workers were striking, with the university saying it was fewer than 20 percent and TUGSA saying it had at least twice as many participating as the university claimed.
TUGSA represents roughly 700 workers.
On Saturday, TUGSA said in a news release that the strike, despite the proposed agreement, is ongoing.
“Members will now have the chance to vote on this counterproposal,” Haroon Popal, a member of TUGSA’s Contract Negotiation Team, said in the release. “The collective membership makes decisions and we will continue with that process as we have through this entire year of negotiating.
The release said that “until this tentative agreement is ratified, the strike continues and all unfair labor practices filed against the university remain active. Members will vote on the tentative agreement over the next few days.”
