6 ms·

As various lawyers have commented on Twitter, this seems like an insanely blatant violation of labor laws. Just a straight up written confession of illegal reta

• akavi 4y ago
  Are companies not allowed to stop paying wages to striking employees? Or is it that tuition remission is viewed as distinct from wages legally?
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • chrisabrams 4y ago
    Students are not employees.
    • stefan_ 4y ago
      These are graduate students, who generally are and that do a large part of the teaching at any university.
    • thorncorona 4y ago
      When I was working for my uni I got a W-2.
      • thwayunion 4y ago
        Yes, but if you were a grad student your W-2 almost certainly didn't include your tuition rebate as part of your total income. And the university sure as hell didn't pay taxes on it.
        • selimthegrim 4y ago
          You can claim it depending on your student scholarship (NSF GRF) or postdoctoral status and what it says on your 1098.
          • eli_gottlieb 4y ago
            I have been explicitly told by a tax accountant that I cannot. If a third party makes a payment to one of their own offices, even presuming that money exists at all to begin with, I can't claim it on my taxes as income or a credit.
            • thwayunion 4y ago
              The person you're responding to is correct in very specific cases like the GRFP; certain fellowships function differently. You're correct in the case of 90+% of grad students.
              • IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
                If this income is not in your W2, then this is very-murky-grey-area-danger-zone stuff. Students and Universities both could be accused of underreporting income or tax witholdings. I suspect there are armies of education lawyers that vetted this, but in any other industry, this is simply a no-go zone. You report what you get and what you pay as comp, cash and noncash.
                • thwayunion 4y ago
                  Grad students are Very Special in tax code. For example: guess how much grad students and their universities pay in FICA taxes for graduate stipends (can be north of $40K; typically 8% of gross for employee and 8% of gross for employer)? $0.00. Tuition remissions in particular definitely do not show up on your W-2. Now, to the question in this thread. If you choose to report tuition as income, you might be able to do that in certain cases, but it's probably because you have some strange reason for wanting to report a higher gross income. I can't even begin think of any reason why that might be. So, murky and likely to cause an audit? Maybe. But then the gov is complaining about getting extra $$$, unless your situation is really fucking weird. Mind you, this is exactly why I find situations like this so reprehensible. Universities get tons of breaks in how they treat grad student labor. For universities to turn around around and fuck grad students like this, on top of the insulting wages, is beyond the pale.
    • jahewson 4y ago
      In 2016 the NLRB ruled that graduate students who teach are, in fact, employees. Note that they have the right to even form a union. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/08/23/are-they-students-or-are-they-employees-nlrb-rules-that-graduate-students-are-employees/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/08/2... Edit: A slight twist on this is that Temple University is a public university and and the NLRB in theory does not have jurisdiction over other parts of the government. PA law, however, offers similar protection. This is off to court for sure.
  • giantg2 4y ago
    My understanding is that unions pay out during a strike. That's one of the uses of union dues.
  • nightpool 4y ago
    Yes, they're separate from wages that graduate students earn. Roughly—graduate students attend college for free, but for financial aid / regulatory / internal budgeting reasons the college can't say they attend for free, so they instead set extremely high tuition numbers and then "pay" that tuition for the students, from one hand of the college to the other hand. But also AIUI Temple took away the whole of the tuition remittance for the entire semester. Companies are allowed to stop paying wages for the time workers are on strike and not working, but taking away tens of thousands of dollars for the entire semester simply for participating in a strike action during a tiny piece of it is absolutely beyond the pale.
    • giantg2 4y ago
      But it's not pay. Their stipend would be pay. The tuition would be a benefit, just as tuition assistance programs at companies are benefits. It's perfectly legal to suspend benefits and pay during a strike, but they must be reinstated when the strike is over. Right or wrong, it seems primia facie legal. Edit: why disagree? What have I said that's factually incorrect? Please, educate us all and add to the discussion in the spirit of the forum.
      • jahewson 4y ago
        Right but they’re not suspending the benefit they’re cancelling it. If they pro-rated a portion of the tuition assistance as owed that would be defensible. But this is a rug-pull.
        • giantg2 4y ago
          Is it pro-rated for students who dropout, or more accurately continue to study while dropping out of work-study, during the semester? Depending on how the explaination of benefits is written, it may not pro-rate. Hell, most companies require you pay back tuition assistance if you leave within 2 years after they pay.
        • secabeen 4y ago
          Where do you see that they are cancelling it? Nothing in the statement I see precludes Temple from paying the remission if the strike resolves in two weeks, well before the due date. Even if the strike goes on longer, and the tuition so due is not paid, the penalty is still relatively a minor; a fine, and inability to register for the following quarter (presumably Fall, over 7 months away).
  • eli_gottlieb 4y ago
    Speaking from present experience: "tuition remission" is a sort of imaginary quantum payment. I call it that because first they "charge" you tuition, then they issue you a "remission". The result is that no money ever actually enters or leaves your bank account, and they write something in a database somewhere to say that you "paid tuition" and are therefore legally a "student" (eg: legal to treat as a student, put under university behavioral discipline, exempt from certain labor laws, etc). You could try to say that it really is "tuition" for "coursework", but most graduate students, most of the time, aren't actually taking any classes that use a classroom or get taught by a professor. Most of their/our "credit hours" are in things labeled stuff like "Readings" or "Dissertation Continuation" that, again, help the university maintain a bureaucratic fiction that someone who has a cubicle and a workstation and spends their time in a lab is not, in fact, working for the university but instead being done a favor by the kindness of the university. But as I said, you don't actually make a penny, so I wouldn't really call it "wages".
    • IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
      that's not correct to say. There is such a thing as noncash compensation. And that's part of total compensation. If the govt has any inkling that you are taking payments in other than cash, they want to know (and tax) it too.
      • eli_gottlieb 4y ago
        But my point is, you're not getting a payment, in any form. Most of the time, you are not taking courses. You're being charged a fee to do your job, and then having that fee "waived". Now, with the remission "withdrawn" for the strike, you have your employer demanding you pay them to be considered their employee.
• hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  Can you point to some of those Twitter comments? I'm honestly curious of which labor laws they are violating. For example, I just did a search regarding healthcare for striking workers, and there is no federal law that prevents cancelling healthcare, to the point that some congresspeople have introduced bills in the last year to specifically outlaw that (but, to emphasize, those are just bills, they haven't been passed).
  • ninjagoo 4y ago
    Original note below the line. Unfortunately, as pointed out by tptacek [0]: > The wrinkle is that Temple's employees are public-sector employees, who are exempt from the NLRA --- but they're not necessarily exempt from equivalent Philadelphia law. tptacek appears to be correct [1]. That said, there is a Pennsylvanian 1970 "Public Employe Relations Act" that could cover unfair practices including retaliation but I can't tell if it is still in force [2]. [3] appears to imply that it is still active. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34733764 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34733764 [1] https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/employees/are-you-covered https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/em... [2] https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/LI/uconsCheck.cfm?txtType=HTM&yr=1970&sessInd=0&smthLwInd=0&act=195&chpt=12 https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/LI/uconsCheck.cfm... [3] https://www.dli.pa.gov/laws-regs/laws/Pages/default.aspx https://www.dli.pa.gov/laws-regs/laws/Pages/default.aspx Original comment: ------------------------------- > I'm honestly curious of which labor laws they are violating Interfering with Employee Rights. [1] Discriminating against Employees because of their union activities [2] specifically Grant a benefit to nonstrikers and/or replacements that is withheld from strikers, or impose a burden on strikers that is not placed on nonstrikers or replacements. [1] https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/interfering-with-employee-rights-section-7-8a1 https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/in... [2] https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/discriminating-against-employees-because-of-their-union https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/di...
    • LanceH 4y ago
      Pretty sure that's referring to benefits/pay for strikers after they have returned to work.
• giantg2 4y ago
  I'm not familiar with these Twitter lawyers. Why would suspension of pay and benefits be illegal? "Generally speaking, those who are part of a legal strike cannot lose their health insurance or other benefits. While they may not receive them during a strike, these benefits must generally be made available to workers after they return to their jobs."
• munk-a 4y ago
  There are reports from strikers trying to refill medication that the medical benefit suspension has already unilaterally gone into effect. The university has gone ahead with their threats in that regard (which is especially shitty since it's pretty standard in the US to give employees a health insurance grace period on termination). I am really confused about what the university thinks they're going to get out of these actions.
  • giantg2 4y ago
    Would COBRA come into play here?
    • munk-a 4y ago
      They should all be eligible for COBRA, but COBRA is pretty insanely expensive (which is hard to pay for if you're striking and don't have a regular income - especially if you don't have much money in general like most grads). And people weren't actually informed their healthcare would be cut so they weren't aware they'd need to apply for bridging coverage.
      • IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
        COBRA is the real cost of healthcare insurance, which is hidden because the employer pays for X % + because the employer and employee both paid with pretax dollars (something that is not possible for COBRA since you are now a former employee) Its not that COBRA is expensive, but that all tax-subsidized employer insurance is prohibitively expensive and typically costs 15-25% of the median worker's after-tax earnings Healthcare insurance subsidies by employers are the biggest piece in wage increases... that are hiding from most "wage growth" statistics
      • hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
        I've been on COBRA a couple of times: 1. For young, single people, especially if they have the option of a high deductible plan, I wouldn't call it "insanely expensive" (now, family coverage I'd agree). In any case, what the sibling comment said is correct - it's just the full cost of the premiums since the employer isn't paying any. 2. Every time I went on COBRA I had a "grace period" of something like 4-8 weeks between when I left employment and when I had to make my first COBRA payment. Even if, for example, I got injured before I decided to officially sign up for COBRA, I still had the option of gaining coverage backdated to the date when I left my employer if it was before the end of the grace period.
• fsckboy 4y ago
  > some obscure exemption for-profit companies do not have to pay strikers wages and benefits while they are on strike. Unions have strike funds they use for that.* When workers go on strike, they want their absence to disrupt the profit making of the business, that is their leverage; but they sacrifice to do it. Part of the claim in this current "unionize graduate students" drive is that they do work and get paid an income to support themselves, that's why they should be allowed to unionize. I mention that because the headline "students on strike" undercuts that claim, when the grad students want to avail themselves of labor law to make it a regular worker-employer dispute. Another point, universities are non-profits and would be better able to say "pay them with what?" if they are not working (some courts decide issues on the basis of equity, where ability to pay is factored in. ianal) (*Did you know that most picketers you see, like next to an inflatable rat outside a real estate development or construction project, are not "employees of the site on strike", but are instead union members who happen to be unemployed from elsewhere and get paid to stand there and do it because it's some income, and helps the union.)
  • dingusdew 4y ago
    [dead]