USF Rejects Graduate Assistant Pay Raise Requests

The University of South Florida has denied requests from its Graduate Assistants Union for pay raises and stipend bargaining. The decision came last week after a year of delays in the negotiation process.

Tessa Barber, the GAU president, stated that the university wants the union to wait until next summer to negotiate a pay raise. This timeline aligns with the finalization of the university’s budget, which could stretch until July.

The conflict stems from an agreement signed last year. Barber explained that the union agreed to the terms with the understanding that they would negotiate pay for the 2026-2027 school year later. When negotiations began this month, the university’s bargaining team informed the union that the Board of Trustees had not authorized any pay increases.

Barber called the delay a violation of that prior understanding. She described the university’s move as disrespectful to the immediate financial struggles faced by graduate assistants. "The can has been punted," Barber said. "It hasn’t even been kicked, it’s been punted, like, years down the road."

Graduate assistants at USF are expected to spend a minimum of 40 hours per week on learning and teaching duties. Barber noted that over a quarter of classes are taught by these students. She added that their research contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to the institution.

Despite their labor and research output, Barber said pay has remained stagnant while housing, food, and gas prices have risen. Many assistants rely on service industry jobs to cover living costs. The university has recently tightened rules on outside employment, making it harder for assistants to work other jobs without risking their positions.

The next bargaining session is scheduled for November 13 at 10 a.m. on USF’s campus. The session will be open to the public. USF’s graduate assistants unionized in 1980, making it one of the oldest graduate assistant unions in the nation. The union faces new challenges under state law SB 1296, which requires half of workers to vote in a union election for it to be considered valid. A legislative staff analysis found the law could violate the state Constitution.