By Alexa Schwerha
Daily Caller News Foundation
Temple University (TU) cut health care benefits and tuition remission for graduate students currently on strike, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Graduate students began their strike for higher wages, improved health care, extended leave and better working conditions on Jan. 31. TU informed students via emails, which were shared on Twitter by affected students, that the university would no longer pay part of or all tuition costs and strikers would lose health care benefits because of their participation in the strike.
“We believe that this is retaliation for going on strike and we are pursuing a challenge to it,” Bethany Kosmicki, past Temple University Graduate Student Association (TUGSA) president, contract negotiations team member and research assistant, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We are deeply disappointed that the university has made this decision because this is a choice for them to cut benefits and from our understanding it is unprecedented in the history of grad labor movement.”
Striking students must pay the full balance of their tuition by March 9, according to a screenshot of the email posted to Twitter by student Madison Ingram. Students who do not meet the deadline will be charged a $100 late fee and be barred from registering for classes until the amount is paid.
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The students demanded a base-wage increase to $32,800 to meet the cost of living in Philadelphia, according to the TUGSA website. The university offered 3% raises for the three remaining contract years, according to the TU website, but argues that it also provides $20,000 in education in addition to salary.
TU also cut access to strikers’ health coverage because of their participation in the strike, an email shared on Twitter by Max Engleman confirmed. The university warned that strikers would “not be paid,” “lose tuition remission” and “no longer receive paid health benefit coverage” on its website.
“It seems that your coverage was terminated due to your decision to strike,” the email reads.
Strikers demand their health care plan extend to dependents. Graduate student workers are currently eligible for full coverage without monthly contribution, according to the TU website.
The strike represents 20% of TUGSA members, according to a Feb. 8 announcement sent by TU to students. The announcement advised students against participating in an upcoming walkout to support the strike, saying that “striking TUGSA members have no authority to cancel classes or make any promises regarding your attendance, grades or any other matter related to courses they are no longer teaching.”
“The university is refusing to bargain unless the union … makes significant cuts to our proposals, and conveniently the lead negotiator for Temple will be going on a two-week vacation starting today,” Kosmicki told the DCNF. “We are ready to negotiate a fair contract at any time, and we hope that the university understands that it needs to do the right thing and meet us at the table.”
TU and Ingram did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. Engleman could not be reached for comment.
This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: What is behind the current war against America’s children? Why are so many adults killing their unborn children right up to the moment of birth, or even after? Why are millions of kids sexualized virtually from birth, and injected with an experimental “vaccine” proven to be both ineffective and dangerous, then as toddlers transported to events glorifying mentally ill, demonically possessed men dressed as women?
Why are America’s children systematically sexualized at school, and by transgender recruiters on social media platforms like TikTok, seducing many into “identifying” as the opposite gender, or a brand-new imaginary gender, then encouraged to take powerful drugs and hormones and have their healthy breasts amputated or undergo chemical or surgical castration?
Why are our children simultaneously indoctrinated with toxic Marxist ideologies like “critical race theory” intended to condition them to hate and reject their own country, parents, faith, race, gender and themselves? Why are they simultaneously being frightened of the future by being fed lurid, terrifying – and groundless – apocalyptic tales of the imminent destruction of the world due to global warming?
No wonder youth suicides have skyrocketed, as have depression, anxiety, addiction and drug overdoses. Indeed, fentanyl, the No. 1 cause of death of younger Americans 18 to 45, destroys multitudes of children annually.
Make no mistake: The harm being done to America’s children in this multi-front war is not accidental: Children are the primary target.
WHY? How can all this be happening in the greatest nation on earth? Who and what is behind it? And HOW CAN IT BE STOPPED?
Find out in the explosive January issue of WND’s critically acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, “WINNING THE WAR AGAINST AMERICA’S CHILDREN,” available in both print and state-of-the-art digital editions.
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