The People;
United!
Will NEVER be defeated.

.

On the other hand,
this may be the best job these turkeys ever get so they might want to watch themselves....

@3, they've been earning advanced degrees longer than that. Try centuries.

And these are some of the most privileged brats in the history of the world crying a river so yeah, they need to toughed up.

The only people I see crying are @3 and @4, so offended at the idea of people being paid for their work. These students will earn more than you ever will, and you are burning with jealousy.

@5

Let me help you.

These are not living wage jobs. They're not meant to raise families on or buy houses. They're interim work while a student finishes their education. That's all.

And a student pcomplaining about the stress of schoolwork as a part of their strike will not be employed in the real world, not for long. Well, maybe in government.

These children are in for a rude awakening when school ends and real life begins.

@4 Yeah! Tough them up! Let them live on the streets like we all did in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, and 90s! We all toughed it out in homeless camps while our rents doubled over the course of our years of study! That happens all the time, in every region of the country, and it has occurred in every decade, and we all sucked it up because we were hard-ass mofos, am I right?

Increasing their tuition while increasing their wages is another way to toughen them up! Yeah! UW's endowment is only $3 billion; it might drop to $2.995 billion! Won't someone think of that poor endowment! UW tuition is barely $10K; if their salaries increase by 20%, they can totally afford $12K because math!

They can increase tuition til the cows come home but for TAs and RAs, tuition waiver is included so it just changes the amount UW bills itself. It's the fees that the students pay.

I don't think these students are after anything unrealistic. They just want to be able to keep a stable room-mate arrangement (and slot a new room-mate in when an old one graduates) and not have to move every year as their rent gets jacked up. They don't want to live in solitary splendor in a Columbia Tower penthouse. The plan is generally to be living a pretty monastic existence in pursuit of knowledge, and if they have to find a new hovel every year it cuts into ability to do that and makes it all take that much longer.

The university might consider providing dorm style housing for their graduate TA"s. Something perhaps akin to military bachelor officer housing; a married student housing complex could also be added. The TA's could elect to eat in the school cafeteria or in kitchenettes in their housing buildings. There are all sorts of solutions for them; the jobs that they are in are not intended to be career type jobs. You work/study for a few years then move on into the ral world and another grad student moves in after you. The professional student, the one who can't bring himself to leave the bubble of academia, will just have to fend for himself; if stress is a problem he will be happier in a less demanding career field.

@6:

Yeah, "interim work" that lasts two, three, or even four years at a stretch, depending on the program track, and who do the bulk of the grunt work in teaching & research sectors, thus saving the University millions of dollars by not having to hire thousands and thousands of full-time employees to do the same work.

Not many former doctoral students on this comment thread, I see!

Try 8 to 10 years at 20K during your prime earning years, while your “advisor” refuses to let you graduate because they need you to do the work.

As far as TA and RA jobs not being career-type jobs, that’s incorrect. They are literally the work faculty used to do. Now faculty manage and write (haha, edit might be a better word) grants while grad students and adjuncts teach and do research. That’s not to say faculty don’t work hard, because they work tremendously hard.

A salary increase would be nice, but what would be better is close attention to getting people through in 4 to 5 years instead and addressing the tremendous siphoning off of funds into administration.

@12

They aren't high school kids earning gas and fun money. They aren't doing what they will be for a career in a year or 2 or 4. There's a word which perfectly describes this. Interim.

English is a fun language. You should study it some time.

Don't the "student workers" get a discount on tuition of some kind? If they do, then that needs to be factored in to their pay. If they get an employee discount, then it should be taken away if they want a raise. Pay for full tuition like everyone else. Whether thru grant, scholarship, etc.

Academic student employees (ASEs, represented by UAW Local 4121) provide 7 out of 10 hours of face-time instruction that undergraduates, the main source of revenue at the UW, receive. So, they make UW a TEACHING university, and help the UW achieve its main mission, which last time I checked was education and public service. There is so much misinformation out there about the work that ASEs do and what their lives are like, so I encourage everyone here who thinks these are "kids" just "whining" to learn some more of the facts. Many ASEs have additional jobs to help them pay rent. Many ASEs have been in the private sector previously and therefore know about the so-called "real world." In addition, I don't think it's so nuts to ask a huge university like the UW to pay its workers (yes, these are workers; ASEs are not paid for time spent taking classes) a living wage.

Lol. That speaker, Keyes, was fine with being a dude for at least a quarter of a century. Then he decided since he wasn’t oppressed enough as a white dude with a comfortable income, he’d find new, creative ways to oppress himself. Now he is happy because he has something to cry about.

Back in the Wikipedia days this dude was a notorious misogynist, you can even find articles about it when you search him in google. He certainly walked like a dude and talked like a dude. UW people you might want to know what you’re getting into.