Graduate Teaching Fellows at the University of Oregon have gone out on strike, refusing to teach any longer under what they feel are unfair conditions. On Thursday, striking teachers formed a picket line in the heart of campus to demand the University administration hear their concerns
Teachers cried out for fair pay, basic job security and recognition of the value they provide the University community: “What do we want?” “A fair contract!” “When do we want it?” “Now!”
Teachers have been on strike for less than 72 hours and already the campus has begun to grind to a halt. One struggling undergraduate student told the Register-Guard newspaper that, “going into a final exam feeling less than fully prepared is a ‘pretty big deal for me because my GTF was very good at prepping us for the test, and I have a lot of test anxiety.’”
The picketing teachers, who are asking for simple workplace protections such as guaranteed parental leave for the birth of a child, wave to schoolchildren exiting the Schnitzer Museum of Art, a world-renowned treasure funded by a titan of the steel industry and alumnus of the University of Oregon.
Demonstrators can be seen here picketing in front of the University of Oregon’s new $41 million Lillis Business Complex. The Graduate Teaching Fellows, many of whom teach classes daily in the Lillis Complex, are asking for only about 2% more in salary increases than the University’s administration has been willing to offer. The average GTF currently earns barely enough to make ends meet.
1/3 of all undergraduate class sessions at the University of Oregon are taught by Graduate Teaching Fellows rather than by professors. In this photo, striking teachers, who are also working toward their own graduate degrees, can be seen in front of Prince Lucien Campbell Hall, the home of many faculty offices from which professors could peer down at their GTF’s demonstrating below.
The most resounding chants erupted from the circle when the Graduate Teaching Fellows implored their own students to take up their cause. “What do we need?” “Undergraduates!” “When do we need them?” “Now!”.
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