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The University of Michigan, where graduate students have been on strike for the past two weeks in protest over payments for teaching undergraduate courses, has agreed to increase such rates by 10.5 per cent over three years.

But still undecided is the issue of compensation for foreign teaching assistants and the English language courses they are required to take. The strike organizers say the dispute is part of an escalating movement among graduate students in universities across the United States.

The strike is the third major revolt by graduate students in recent years. Three years ago, students at Yale University went on strike over the treatment of low-paid campus employees. And last year, student teaching assistants took strike action at all eight campuses of the University of California over the right to form a union.

Most of the Michigan strikers are members of the Graduate Employee Organization, a union affiliated to the Federation of American Teachers. The union is in the process of organizing graduate students at 25 other US academic institutions.

The strike involves about two thirds of the 2,100 graduate student instructors on the Michigan campus. About half are science and engineering graduate students.

According to the university, they work about 20 hours a week, and earn an average of $16.34 an hour, making Michigan one of the top US universities in terms of pay and conditions for the instructors. But the students say their monthly income of about $1,133 is not enough to make ends meet.

Stephen Arellano, a union spokesman, says pressures on graduate students are intense. “The university likes to refer to us as professionals, but they don't treat us as such,” he says. “We do a good job teaching and we should get compensated.” The students were demanding a pay increase to $1,400 a month.

Some see the events at Michigan as reflecting increasing tension in US research universities. “Graduate students see themselves today as part of a labour group,” says one academic lobbyist in Washington. “They don't make enough money, they don't like their conditions, their fellowships [are increasingly] being taken away, they're in debt up to the hilt. This is going to grow.”

The issue draws attention to the role of the Association of American Universities (AAU), whose members include most of the major research universities. Although a study last year confirmed the AAU's position that graduate students should primarily be considered as students, it said little about the financial and psychological strains on them.

AAU president Nils Hasselmo says he sees no need for the association to intervene in such conflicts, as universities should deal with militant graduate student unions case by case. But he says the AAU remains interested in the conditions of graduate education.

But others criticize the AAU for not taking a more active role in defending graduate students. One source affiliated to the National Academy of Sciences says: “These students don't want to be United Auto Workers; they want to be students and academics. But they don't want to be walked over, either.”

Some predict that postdoctoral students, who are also under economic pressure, may take similar action. And there are also rumblings from adjunct professors, who make even less money than graduate assistants and work longer hours.