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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) – In a letter to the University of Memphis Administration, graduate workers with the United Campus Workers (UCW) have filed a request for health insurance and a living wage.
The requests include a health insurance plan for grad employees that covers essential benefits specified in the Affordable Care Act and covers at least 80% of covered medical expenses.
The letter also calls for a $15 minimum wage for all graduate workers and funding for graduate worker health insurance that does not reduce graduate benefits.
According to UCW, the University of Memphis does not currently offer health insurance to graduate employees.
UCW’s Graduate Staff Organizing Committee has been calling for the university to provide health insurance coverage to all students for the past three years.
However, after UCW confirmed its R1 classification as a top-tier research university, the university refused to commit.
in June, UCW started a petition It calls for better working conditions, including fairer staffing, better equipment and allowing workers to return to their old jobs after being shifted to nights.
At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, UCW asked administrators to do so Ensuring security Of all those involved in college/university campuses.
Although graduate employees may opt-in for some health care services through the Church Health Center MEMPHIS plan, this plan is not insurance, UCW says.
“M’s website describes it as a “Ministry of Health… composed of volunteer doctors and medical services provided by aid”, and in As of spring 2019, only 49 graduate students have opted into the program.
Earlier this summer, UCW said the university would consider an “emergency fund” for expenses not covered by the MEMPHIS plan.
However, union members argue that the emergency fund “provides only the bare minimum, not the long-term or preventive coverage enjoyed by other University of Memphis employees.”
“The University of Memphis continues to rank among the lowest in graduate grants, while graduate students continue to shoulder the highest costs of our own health care,” GWOC wrote. “It is unacceptable that a university that claims to be a world-class research institution fails to meet the basic needs of its researchers and teaching assistants.”
“We will continue to take our fight to new graduate students on campus, graduate school students, the broader UFM community, the media, and anyone else who will listen,” GWOC said in a statement.
The UCW letter to the University Administration is attached.
Action News 5 contacted the university for comment, but no response was received.
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