Earlier this evening I made my first, and hopefully last, steps into politics. It was the most fun I've had in weeks. A sociology graduatre student wrote an open letter to UGGS, the graduate student "government" at the University of Colorado. They don't really govern grad students, but they claim to represent their interests to the administration. And I have to admit, they do a commendable job.

I could think of no better bait to lure me to the meeting than this guy's letter. He proposed a "living wage" for all graduate students of $25K per year. He arrived at this figure with a budget for "necessities," and peppered it with Marxist jargon and identity politics. At the meeting I had two minutes to express my opposition this proposal, which, if voted for, UGGS would pursue. Inspired by ESPN's Chris Berman, it was the "fast two minutes in...", uh, political rhetoric?

I: Strategy:

A. Selling ideas, know your customer. UGGS - not all Marxists. Grad School: What do they care about? What's it like to be in their shoes? Attracting students, faculty, $$$.

II: The Proposal

1. A "living wage" - $25,000/year.

-- Prestigious Fellowships: The Hertz Fellowship, DOD, Krell, same amount or less. EVERYONE should get this, regardless of merit or department?

"These are not luxuries in our society. They are necessities."

*Car+ Ins: $250/mo ...
-- So we ALL need cars? $12K cars? Late model cars? Really.
-- I have a car, but I worked for two years before coming here, and paid for it myself.
-- Grad School: Bus Pass, bike

*rent:$850/mo

-- for first two years, my rent < $400, and that was *before* real estate prices began to fall.
-- Let's say $500/mo to be generous.

*food: $500/mo ...
-- for 3 meals/day, that's $5.50 per meal. Not bad - for that you can get lunch and dinner on the Hill every day!
-- A home cooked pasta meal is about $1. Burritos: $1.
-- $100/month for food. But to be nice, put $250, what I spent on groceries last month.

*telephone, computer, and other expenses: $500/month
-- You can *buy* a computer for $500.
-- New Dell monthly payment $31/month. Phone is $25 per month - if you have your own line. And that's a luxury, no?
-- ~~ $400 in other expenses? No.
-- $100 a month.

Total: $850/month = $10.2K/year, which is LESS than the $15K he quoted as "obvious economic exploitation". Who’s exploiting whom?

*economic exploitation: students get paid less than faculty for the same job.
-- Are we all Marxists now? Is the labor theory of value back in style? Levis jeans, New York Times magazine.

-- Should CU pay the profs as much as the grad students?

*racism: because it may exclude students.
-- Proof?
-- The Race Card. Does UGGS want to sink to this level of rhetoric?
-- New plan may be "racist."

2. Comprehensive health-care for all graduate students.
-- Why not do this with food and clothing? Aren't these necessities, too?
-- Is it possible that health care is so expensive because the end users do not pay for it directly? Give something away for "free" and the demand sky-rockets.
-- UGGS plan - good.

3. Free on-sight child care for grad-students with children.
-- Who will pay for this "free" service? Should graduate students have children and expect that other people will pay for its care? Shouldn't CU graduate students be responsible for their choices?
-- Race. What if it's more common for graduate students of race to have children than another race? Might this policy be racist, as it benefits one race more than another?
-- Dogs/horses. What if a graduate student, instead of having children, chooses to raise dogs, or horses? Should the school provide a kennel, or a ranch for these animals? If not, why not? Are we going to favor one life-style over another? Is this a type of speciesism?

III. Conclusion
Try to see both sides of the issue. How to the individual departments determine student wages? What would make them change?

Really, this letter (below) belongs on The Onion…

Original letter:

Colleagues,

I'm sending this so it can be put into today's meeting minutes. It is attached in Word Perfect and in text below. I added a sentence in the child-care section, and switched the order of two paragraphs, otherwise it is the same as the letter I distributed in today's meeting.

Thanks, [Marxist guy]

Department of Sociology Campus Box 327 University of Colorado Boulder, CO 80309-0327

An Open Letter to UGGS [Marxist Guy] Department of Sociology Fall 2002

Greetings fellow representatives and officers,

I would like to read this short letter in our November 20 meeting and have it entered into the official meeting minutes. These are issues that I and others have brought up previously, but have not yet been entered into the official minutes.

The following are issues that many graduate students at the University of Colorado feel are important, therefore I feel that they should be acknowledged and addressed by the graduate student government. They are not in order of importance, because if they impact one graduate student's ability to live in a healthy environment, they are important enough to be put onto the top of the agenda by the grad-student government. These goals are all attainable, as our European colleagues all receive the following.

1. A living wage must be provided to working graduate students. A living wage in Boulder, CO amounts to $25,000/year. Car: $200/mo, Insurance: $50/mo, rent:$850/mo, food: $500/mo, telephone, computer, and other expenses: $500/month = $2100/mo x 12 mo = $25,200. These are not luxuries in our society. They are necessities. This level of compensation is not to make grad-students rich, to build a big 401K, or to buy a house, but to provide bare-minimum coverage of life's necessities. In my department a grad-student does the same work teaching classes as faculty, yet gets paid less than $15,000/year. This is obvious economic exploitation. To not fund students fully (with tuition waivers as well) is to allow only the middle-, upper-middle-, and higher classes the opportunity to achieve higher education. Because minorities are disproportionally working-class in the USA, the current policy is racist as well.

2. Comprehensive health-care for all graduate students. I mean by comprehensivethat it is fully funded by the university. There is no cost to the grad-student in doctors visits, prescriptions, and for the policy, for both physical (including dental and optical) and mental care. Currently there are graduate-students who pay huge sums out-of-pocket for care and prescriptions. For example, if a student is paying $500/mo out of pocket for Rx, that comes to $6000/year. This is an inexcusable burden on people who are already struggling with health issues. Again, this is not such a problem for the privileged in our community, but minorities, people in poverty, and the working-class are negatively affected. The families of graduate-students should be covered as well. I know of one woman who s 2-year-old daughter is on Medicaid for cripes sakes. Since men as well as women have child-care issues, many potential students will choose not to attend graduate school if their child needs adequate care.

3. Free on-sight child care for grad-students with children. Not too much needs to besaid about this, except for that in the USA often the burden of child-rearing is disproportionally placed on women. Therefore, it is an obvious sexist strategy to not provide free on-sight child care at our university. A student I know is spending $800/month out-of-pocket to hire someone to watch over her pre-school child. Parents will be kept out of higher education if the structure is not designed for them as human beings. 4. Use UGGS funds to keep a law firm on retainer for the free use of graduate-students when they have disputes with the administration and need legal protection.

We need the above things, at a minimum, in order to protect real intellectual freedom and diversity. For example, a recent study shows that nationally, law students are going into lucrative law businesses rather than doing public service work because of the huge debts they ve acquired during grad-school. There are plenty of other examples of this, and the primary lesson is that funding distorts the ideological and intellectual spectrum.

In my experience, student governments have often been more about those elected than representing students interests. If we socialize with the administrations to beef up our vitas, get letters-of-recommendations from Vice-Chancellors, and sponsor expensive dinners with the administration, we are doing that on the backs of our colleagues in need.

This is an opportunity for the representatives in UGGS to support and fight for our colleagues in need of these changes, and I believe we should rise to the challenge.

Sincerely, [Marxist guy], Sociology Representative