Opinion: Why is UConn getting in the way of affordable health benefits for graduate assistants?

Morgan Thomas is a Graduate Assistant at UConn’s Department of Philosophy and a member of Graduate Employee Union-UAW Local 6950.

Despite the value of our work as graduate assistants, the University of Connecticut has blocked our efforts to negotiate health benefits on par with other state employees. Having cut and mismanaged our healthcare, they now refuse to sit down with us to look for a better solution.

A huge majority of graduate assistants (GAs) formed a union last spring. Since then, our elected bargaining committee has spent nearly a year negotiating our first contract. Dramatic, unilateral healthcare cuts in recent years ranked high among the factors driving more than 70 percent of us to sign up as members of Graduate Employee Union-UAW (GEU-UAW).

In 2003, GAs were removed from the state employee health plan, with an understanding that UConn would provide a separate plan — likely at lower costs due to our young demographic — which would match the benefit design of the state plan. This system worked adequately, until a couple of years ago.

See the complete story at CT News Junkie.