The lowest-paid graduate assistants will now see a $2,000 raise in January.
On Wednesday, UF’s Graduate Assistants United labor union and UF officials signed off on a proposal for graduate assistant raises after back-and-forth negotiations that began in August. The final proposal includes a $290 flat raise, a $60 fee relief for all graduate assistants and a $15,000 minimum stipend for half-time assistants who work nine months per year, up from $13,000.
If approved by the UF Board of Trustees, the changes will be effective starting Jan. 1, 2017.
John Hames, GAU’s chief bargainer, smiled as he signed the agreement.
“It’s a deal we can live with,” he said. “We fought hard for them. We got more than the university was probably willing to give.”
The $290 flat raise in the proposal will add to the $430 flat raise that GAU and UF agreed on last year. The new proposal is also increasing fee reliefs by $10.
Hames said he was happy the university offered to increase raises by a flat rate instead of a percentage raise. With the flat rate, every graduate assistant will receive the $290 raise, regardless of his or her salary.
After signing the proposal, UF’s chief bargainer, Bill Connellan, told GAU negotiators that he values the relationship with the union.
“We have an agreement,” Connellan said. “It signals that the university cares about the graduate assistants. We tried to do something special for them this year.”
But Hames said the union isn’t done. He said he still believes the university could have offered more.
Hames said the union can now shift its efforts toward negotiations over the full graduate assistants’ contract in January, which opens up for negotiation once every three years.
The union wants to prioritize reducing fees for graduate assistants. Hames said he could’ve put down a house payment with the amount of fees he has paid UF since becoming a graduate assistant.
Graduate assistants pay between $1,400 and $1,900 in fees each year and change depending on how many months they work, Hames said. The fees are a burden.
“Graduate assistants have families,” he said. “They have houses. They are, in many cases, facing economic difficulty even though they are the frontlines of making education a success here at UF.”
Connellan said the raises for graduate assistants will help UF compete with top-tier schools. The proposal will be presented to the Board of Trustees at the December meeting to be approved and finalized, he said.
“We can recruit better students,” Connellan said. “We can be more competitive.”
