Dear colleagues,
UMD AAUP has some very exciting news to share soon—so be on the lookout for another email from us soon!—but in the meantime there is a very important issue that we would like to ask you to take action on.
Did you know that UMD graduate student stipends, when adjusted for the staggeringly high cost of living in the DMV, are by far the lowest in the Big Ten and leave the graduate students with a cost-of-living deficit of $6,700 for the academic year and $11,000 for the entire year? (See graph below and page 7 here for full details.)
This is, quite frankly, unconscionable. And this is why graduate students have been organizing for years to be able to unionize and collectively bargain with UMD administration (which is currently not allowed).
Right now graduate students are on the cusp of getting their collective bargaining bill SB521 out of the finance committee, but they need some help to convince at least two more legislators to support it. So they are asking everyone to contact the legislators below TODAY and ask them to support SB521.
| Klausmeier, Katherine | Baltimore County | |
| Guzzone, Guy | Howard County | |
| McCray, Cory V. | Baltimore City | |
| Hayes, Antonio | Baltimore City | |
| Kagan, Cheryl C. | Montgomery County | |
| Patterson, Obie | Prince George’s County | |
| Peters, Douglas J. J. | Prince George’s County |
If you can call or email these legislators’ offices this afternoon (3/17) or early tomorrow morning (or, if you are really outraged, call and email!), it would be a great help for the graduate students’ cause! (And if you get a response from any of the senators or their staff, please let the grad students know at [email protected].)