No one should have to pay to work

Email your NYS legislators to urge them to stand with SUNY graduate workers and end mandatory fees!

(The link contains a sample email and will let you know who your Legislators are - all you have to do is put your name and address in)

Are you a SUNY graduate worker, student, faculty, staff member, alum, or other member of the SUNY community? Sign the open letter to the New York State Legislature asking them to include money in the NYS budget to end grad worker fees.

SUNY graduate student workers are relied on to teach classes, grade papers and conduct research and are collapsing under the weight of onerous school fees.

In recent years, the cost of these fees has risen steadily at public colleges and universities in the U.S., in response to the problem of inadequate state funding for public higher education. Fees often function as backdoor tuition for public universities to circumvent state imposed tuition caps and sustain their operating costs.

In many cases, these fees fund systems and services that graduate workers rely on to do their jobs, such as the software programs used to collect and assess student assignments and submit grades. This constitutes a “pay-to-work” system in which employees are being charged for the maintenance and upkeep of the workplace.

Fees account for an average of 15% of grad worker stipends - meaning these workers must pay 15% of their salary back to their employers just to do their jobs. The result is many of these workers living in poverty and having to resort to taking out loans, skipping meals, living in their cars, eating food out of dumpsters, or even selling their blood plasma just to make ends meet.

We're calling on our New York State Legislature to put an end to mandatory fees for SUNY and CUNY graduate workers. Send an email right now to your NYS Assemblymember and Senator to tell them to co-sponsoring A.7241/S.3916 and supporting this request in the NYS budget!

The Facts

• SUNY employs approximately 4,500 graduate students and CUNY employs approximately 2,000 graduate students as teaching and research assistants who teach courses, grade exams and papers, and conduct laboratory research.
• While tuition is waived, graduate student employees are still forced to pay onerous fees.
• In recent years, the cost of these fees has risen steadily at public colleges and universities in the U.S. The increase in fees represents a financial response to the problem of inadequate state funding for public higher education. Fees often function as backdoor tuition for public universities to circumvent stateimposed tuition caps and sustain their operating costs.
• In many cases, these fees fund systems and services that graduate workers rely on in their capacity as employees, such as the software programs used to collect and assess student assignments and submit grades. This constitutes a “pay-to-work” system in which employees are being charged for the maintenance and upkeep of the workplace, rather than the employer bearing full responsibility for such operating costs, as is the norm in most workplaces.

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