How is reducing take-home pay a “fair” offer?

Because they (we the taxpayers) are paying for their health insurance, dumbass.

Someday when you enter the real world you’ll realize how much that costs, especially if you are self employeed or have pre-existing conditions, you can easily spend $10,000 to $12,000 annually plus co-pays for basic high-deductable coverage.

That’s because when you’re self-employed, you don’t have the ability to bargain as the member of a large group and drive your costs down. That’s not just the “real world”, that’s our shitty health care system, which makes those with the least pay the most.

What I don’t understand is why folks who argue that government employees should face the “real world” (i.e. businesses public and private alike increasingly pay less and less of our health care costs) don’t get mad about the current system. Is it sane that a self-employed individual should pay 10,000 a year for health care? Is it sane that a person without insurance will pay far more for her health care than someone with it, even though they very lack of that insurance means that bill will be too high to pay? At least they can declare bankruptcy…oops, oh well. Face it, folks, when it comes to most things, the market succeeds; when it comes to health care, the market sucks.

And since when is a wage freeze AND abandoning zero-cost health care “the middle”?

“That’s because when you’re self-employed, you don’t have the ability to bargain as the member of a large group and drive your costs down. That’s not just the “real world”, that’s our shitty health care system, which makes those with the least pay the most.”

Not exactly true, because when you’re self employed you pay all the insurance, while generally if you’re part of a company health plan they pay for part of it. e.g. my healthy dad is self employed and he pays about $800 month, I work for a 300+ employee company and I pay $100 a month AND my employer pays another $400. This is why Bush is trying to get that small business health plan thing, to be able to let small biz spread the risk.

(at bottom) http://www.gop.com/GOPAgenda/AgendaPage.aspx?id=4

And there is an element of wholesale bargining, buiying health insurance for 2000 people is cheaper per person than buying just 10. Just like buying a keg of beer is cheaper than buying a 6 pack, I wouldnt consider that unfair or shitty, thats just economies of scale.

Don’t let your emotions get in the way of basic economic logic. You can’t just cap or set price controls on health care. It will degrade service and cause shortages (just like the flu shot thing). Also realize that just because state employees get free health insurance, doesn’t mean its any cheaper than what any large business is paying. We’re all paying for it through tax money, but us taxpayers still have to pay for our own insurance on top of that.

It’s the middle because health care costs are rising…and it doesn’t help that when someone uses a hospital for no charge…who pays? That’s right, we do…our insurance companies do, so we pay for ourselves and the next person. 10 bucks a month for health insurance? SHUT YOUR MOUTH AND REALIZE THAT IS A STEAL.

Even if the health insurance premium is trivial (and I agree, with reservations, that it is), the salary offer is bogus. For all the talk here about how we should let market forces drive wages, no one has mentioned that market forces dictate that our TA’s are paid about 10% less than TA’s at comparable universities and get less benefits.

Here’s another “market forces” argument that’s been ignored: graduate school doesn’t work the same way college does. Graduate schools actually bid on top graduate students. I guarantee you that the top grad students in every department at UW had offers to study at other universities, tuition free and often with much higher pay, yet came here anyway because UW offered something the other universities didn’t, like specific faculty with whom they wanted to study. But if you make their wage packets even more substandard compared to other universities, the top grad students will stop coming here. And since grad students do about half the teaching here, you’ll either get even worse TA’s or professor will have to start teaching those classes. If professors have to replace TA’s in the classroom, the costs of those classes will increase by at least 500%, and your tuition will increase accordingly. So the real “steal” here is that you get good TA’s without paying market value for them.

So would you like higher tuition to pay your TA’s more? Don’t tell me your someone who whines about that too…I’m all for paying someone a decent wage, but when it comes down to it, and the money isn’t there…they are being given a very fair offer…cheap health insurance alone is enough for most people…You can’t pay someone money that isn’t there?

A huge problem with our health care system is that it is NOT based on a free market approach. Patients (customers) by and large have no idea how much anything costs. They are buffered from the true costs by HMOs and insurance. As such, their only consideration is quality. The attitude seems to be “forget the cost - it’s my health!” So long as patients are able to make informed and rational decisions like that, it’s okay. Unfortunately, right now those decisions are not rational and certainly not informed.

“they are being given a very fair offer”

How do you figure? The health insurance package, yes, that’s pretty fair, but the salary is still 10% below market value. Why should the TA’s do without even cost of living increases, when the legislature (the people negotiating against them) votes itself a substantial raise every session? For the kind of work TA’s do, a TA working 20 hours per week saves the state at least $15,000 every semester compared with having a professor do the same work. Don’t the TA’s deserve to be paid enough that they can actually afford the nice things in life, like food and shelter?

The TA’s are already getting FREE tuition. When the cost of tuition rises the value of their job increases with it. Even if they don’t receive a wage increase, the cost of grad school tuition going up will be essentially equal to them receiving a pay raise. What’s 7% of grad school tuition? Roughly $300 (if I did my math right) And that’s per semester, so that’s an effective raise of $20 a week.

But honestly, if the TA’s are that concerned about the money they need to hurry up, graduate and get out into the real world where they can make money. Being a TA is not supposed to be a career.

That line about how the TA’s turned down free rides with more pay is mostly a bunch of bs. That may be true for a few of the TA’s but for the vast majority of them they’re TA’s because they want free education.

So just because some people have bad health care we should make sure that nobody gets taken care of? Give the TA’s what they deserve.

“The TA’s are already getting FREE tuition. When the cost of tuition rises the value of their job increases with it. Even if they don’t receive a wage increase, the cost of grad school tuition going up will be essentially equal to them receiving a pay raise. What’s 7% of grad school tuition? Roughly $300 (if I did my math right) And that’s per semester, so that’s an effective raise of $20 a week.”

That’s an interesting idea, except that grad students don’t pay tuition at any university when they TA. So if their salaries are still 10% below market value, even the “effective raise” is no raise because tuition is rising everywhere.

“That line about how the TA’s turned down free rides with more pay is mostly a bunch of bs. That may be true for a few of the TA’s but for the vast majority of them they’re TA’s because they want free education.”

Spoken like someone with a GPA far too low to get into grad school. Grad students are by definition the best students who graduate from college, and the grad students at top universities like this one are the besst of the best. If they got in here, they probably got in elsewhere as well, and probably did turn down better offers from elsewhere. You might have a case for the people who TA every semester of the grad school careers, but if you had half a brain, you’d realize that all grad students have to TA at some point because they need to demonstrate to potential employers (namely, other universities) that they have some teaching experience.

Man the College Republicans are a bunch of repugnant cry babies. They can dish out all the hate and filth and the world but can’t take any themselves. For evidence see the “Eat In” news article and notice how all of the comments were erased because barb and janell were getting a little upset. Poor girls, doesn’t it suck to be on the wrong end of the hate? Now you know how the rest of the world feels when you open your mouth.

Maybe it would be a better idea to find a higher percent of TAs who speak GOOD English, or put forth a decent effort for that matter. Don’t tell me I should listen to all the TA’s whine when I’ve had two TAs who have spoken good English. I don’t come to school to try and interpret Chinese or Farsi, sorry.

“Maybe it would be a better idea to find a higher percent of TAs who speak GOOD English, or put forth a decent effort for that matter. Don’t tell me I should listen to all the TA’s whine when I’ve had two TAs who have spoken good English. I don’t come to school to try and interpret Chinese or Farsi, sorry.”

If your TA’s don’t speak English well enough, that’s not the fault of the TAA, it’s the fault of the university. All TA’s for whom English is a second language are required to pass an exam administered by UW to certify that their English is good enough for them to teach undergrads. If they pass the exam but their English still isn’t good enough, you should take it up with Wiley or the dean, not the TAA.

“Spoken like someone with a GPA far too low to get into grad school.” —-Wrong, I am in grad school right now. I also happen to have a full time professional job.

“but if you had half a brain, you’d realize that all grad students have to TA at some point because they need to demonstrate to potential employers (namely, other universities) that they have some teaching experience.” —-That’s assuming that all TA’s want to become professors. I’m in grad school now and I don’t want to be a prof. If I didn’t have my job I’d want to be a TA though so that I can get free tuition.

The teaching experience comes in handy in that it shows the TA has mastery over the subject (which means next to nothing if they TA an entry level course) and that they have “some” form of leadership. (Which is important to some interviewers but experience and course work will usually take precedence)

I apologize to anyone who is actually doing this to become a teacher. (History majors, english majors, etc.) If they’re TA’ing those courses then they are doing it for the resume building experience (in addition to the free tuition). But if you think that ALL TA’s (aka Engineers, Business majors, etc.) are being TA’s so that they can become professors you’re just being naive.

“Grad students are by definition the best students who graduate from college, and the grad students at top universities like this one are the besst of the best. If they got in here, they probably got in elsewhere as well, and probably did turn down better offers from elsewhere.” —-Just because they turned down better offers doesn’t mean they should be paid more money here. They chose to go to the UW system due to the education they would receive, not due to the money they would make. Even though they’re not gaining in the financial sense, their UW education will be much more valuable to them then if they went to Whatsamatta U.

“Just because they turned down better offers doesn’t mean they should be paid more money here. They chose to go to the UW system due to the education they would receive, not due to the money they would make. Even though they’re not gaining in the financial sense, their UW education will be much more valuable to them then if they went to Whatsamatta U.”

That’s fair, but just because they agreed to come here doesn’t mean that they should bend over when the state tries to fuck them over and force them to work for below-poverty wages.