A Washtenaw County judge has refused the University of Michigan’s request for an order to send striking graduate instructors and assistants back to work. That’s as the graduate workers strike is about to enter its second week.
Graduate workers and their allies rallied outside the courthouse prior to the hearing. They’re calling for better wages, recognition of trans rights, and a host of other demands to end their walkout. Brian Geiringer is a 3rd year master’s student. He says the university cannot operate without its roughly 22-hundred graduate workers.
“And, instead, we’re having to show them how important we are, actually, to the university infrastructure.”
The university says the graduate workers’ strike is a breach of the current contract and unfair to students who late in this term need to take exams and get work graded in time to graduate.
