Your fees aren’t due until April 6th, so don’t pay them yet!

Our CBA brought big wins, including partial fee relief for graduate workers who pay the Student Services Fee and the International Student Services Fee (the offset is determined by our appointment %, see page 44 of our contract for details). Unfortunately, the University is determined to underdeliver and take our money. We are asking all graduate workers to take 3 actions:

1) Send this email to the tax help line asking for clarification and justification of their policies.

(2) Fill out this survey on fee relief and pay. It only takes a few minutes, and will help us understand how fee relief differs across departments!

(3) Share this information with a coworker.

In case you aren’t already informed on what our fight around fees is about, here’s a brief overview. Since we agreed on the fee relief MOU (Page 44 of our CBA), GLU has asserted that our fee relief can and should be distributed through MyU. When benefits are applied through MyU, they are treated in the same way as tuition credits and are not immediately subject to income tax. Despite this clear path forward, when the benefit is taxed through payroll, graduate workers receive less than the guaranteed fee relief outlined in the MOU. Providing less than the negotiated amount violates the terms of the CBA, and continually misapplying tax law demonstrates a retaliatory motive against the wins of our CBA.

Graduate workers fought for this fee relief to meaningfully reduce their financial burden of mandatory university fees. Implementing it through payroll undermines that purpose and limits the amount of money that actually reaches graduate workers’ pockets. GLU-UE demands that the University distribute fee relief through MyU so that graduate workers receive the full value of the benefit.

According to the IRS website:

“Scholarships, fellowship grants, and other grants are tax-free if you meet the following conditions:

• You're a candidate for a degree at an educational institution whose primary function is the presentation of formal instruction and that maintains a regular faculty and curriculum and normally has a regularly enrolled body of students in attendance at the place where it carries on its educational activities; and

• The amounts you receive are used to pay for tuition and fees required for enrollment or attendance at the educational institution, or for fees, books, supplies, and equipment required for courses at the educational institution.”

Even further, the IRS explicitly states that employers can provide tax-free educational assistance if it is for qualified expenses: “Employers can continue to use educational assistance programs to help employees with undergraduate or graduate-level student loan debt and other education expenses tax-free.

Our contract expires in June of 2027, meaning that we can begin shaping what we want in that contract. In order to do that, we must continuously organize to understand what graduate workers need and how we can attain it. If we want our next contract to have even stronger protections against mandatory University fees, we have to start organizing now! If you are interested in helping with these efforts, join the Fees and Pay Raise Committee by filling out this form. We need more hands! All GLU organizing is done by graduate workers just like you, so come join us in fighting for a better workplace for all!

In solidarity,

The Fees and Pay Raise Committee