When I was very young, my father worked 45-50 hours a week as a janitor/handyman in addition to taking classes to become a paramedic. He only got paid for 40 of those hours, and minimum wage at that. Why? Because the place he worked at refused to pay overtime, and if he failed to get everything done on time, they would have fired him for incompetence. Eventually, after 7 years, he screwed up and they did.

Why am I telling this little story? Because in the years since, and at the time, my father never complained about the way he was treated by his employer. Not because he was some type of saint (he complains all the time), but because they were doing him a favor. The economy in the late 80’s early 90’s was bad and my hometown was worse. Getting a full-time job was virtually impossible; it was a small town, the factory had closed, etc.

GEO complains about not getting a living wage. I, and millions of other US citizens, sympathize; it really is not fair. It is not fair that graduate students get 900$ a month plus free tuition for 20 hours of work a week, while millions of others have to work 40+ hours a week to get the same amount of compensation, without the benefit of an advanced degree at the end.

Welcome to the real world, where it has everything to do with supply and demand, and nothing to do with fair. Multiple people apply for every opening at a competitive graduate school. If GEO went on a permanent strike, there would be new graduate students by the time Christmas rolled around…

Luke Weaver,

senior in Engineering