The University has been playing pretty vicious hardball with the striking students (e.g., pulling their health insurance, demanding they now pay tuition), but the strike continues, no doubt because the average annual salary of graduate student TAs is about $19,500, which is astonishingly low.  The statement of support from the Temple philosophers is below the fold:

Statement of Temple University Department of Philosophy Faculty In Support of Our Graduate Student Workers

February 10, 2023

As members of the Department of Philosophy faculty, we support the demands of the Temple University Graduate Students’ Association (TUGSA) in their current contract negotiations with the University. We also strongly oppose the University’s revocation of striking graduate students’ tuition and health insurance benefits. Our graduate students rely on Temple health insurance to meet their basic healthcare needs. Directly threatening the health and welfare of members of our student body evidences a disregard for our community and undercuts the University’s claims to care about equity.

Graduate workers are a key part of our department and our university: without them, we are not able to complete our own research, mentor undergraduate students, or effectively teach students in our courses. For over a year, TUGSA has put forward proposals to ensure fair wages, working conditions, dependent health care coverage, and leave policies for graduate TAs and RAs. These proposals would improve the lives of graduate workers, as well as benefiting our department and enhancing the quality of undergraduate instruction.

We believe that the members of TUGSA, even while they are on strike, remain Temple graduate students, and we hope that the University will refrain from unnecessarily harsh or disrespectful treatment of them.

Eli Alshanetsky

Philip Atkins

Katie Brennan

César Cabezas

Lee-Ann Chae

Eugene Chislenko

Paul Crowe

Kristin Gjesdal

Espen Hammer

Brian Hutler

Miriam Solomon

David Wolfsdorf

Department of Philosophy

Temple University