Unionized graduate-student instructors at the University of Michigan walked away from their teaching assignments today in an attempt to pressure the university to make concessions at the bargaining table. The walkout, which has sent graduate students to picket lines across the Ann Arbor campus, is scheduled to last through Wednesday.
The union’s old contract with the university expired at midnight Monday, with administrators and union leaders still at loggerheads over salary increases and mental-health-care provisions in the new three-year contract they are negotiating, according to The Detroit News.
The union, called the Graduate Employees Organization, represents 1,700 graduate students at Michigan. University officials said they expected classes to continue during the walkout. —Charles Huckabee
