Success! Your participation in surveys saved you money!

The Graduate Assistant Advisory (GAAC) council would like to extend a BIG THANK YOU to all the Graduate Assistants (GAs) that participated in the surveys or provided feedback over the past year on cost of living and health insurance coverage. The swift information you provided in those surveys was very persuasive to the university administrators that made the decision to completely cover the $714.00 (19.2%) increase in health insurance premiums this year.

As you may recall, the university administrators were faced with the hard decision to either purchase a cheaper health care plan that would raise the out of pocket costs if a GA visits a doctor, or to find the money to cover the increase to keep our insurance the same. One of the proposed solution was to ask GAs to pay a portion of the $714. But because of your feedback and participation, they recognized the financial and health impacts of both changing the health care policy or asking GAs to pay a portion of the increase. And so the outcome is that we will have the same insurance and the university will not ask GAs to pay for the cost increase this year.

Therefore, please continue to STAY INVOLVED with the GAAC as this issue will come up again in January. Additionally, if you have any other concerns related to your working conditions, please reach out to us at any time.

Dear Graduate Assistants,

A student advocacy group at College Park, the Fearless Student Employees coalition (made up of the student government and GAAC), has been working on a bill to allow all Maryland system student employees the right to collectively bargain. The bill, HB 1250, has a hearing at 3:00 pm today in Annapolis.

The purpose of HB 1250 is to remove student employees at the University System of Maryland, Morgan State University, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and Baltimore City Community College from the list of employees who are ineligible to engage in 6 collective bargaining. This does not mean we have to collective bargain, but opens the possibility to it.

First, they have asked for as many supporters as possible to sign their petition in the hopes of convincing legislators to support their cause. Here is the link to the petition. They aim for 1000 signatures to present at the hearing and now have 720.

Second, if you have a story that you would like to share with legislators about why you believe this is important--even if it is just a paragraph or two of an anecdote in support--please email it to gaac@umd.edu. We will format your testimony and send it in for you. To convey the importance of this bill for our campuses all across the state, we need as many stories as possible, so please help spread the word!

We at the GAAC decided to support this bill, as it will give us additional means to address the concerns of graduate assistants in the future. We wanted to give all GAs the opportunity to support this if they wish. Below is an email from one of the bill's organizers with more information and a link to the petition.

Thank you,