Graduate students lose health benefits after departmental errors

Some UCLA graduate student academic workers have lost access to their full health benefits, after their departments failed to process payment for their tuition and fees on time.

The Office of the Registrar informed the teaching assistants, tutors and readers that they had outstanding balances on BruinBill on Thursday.

United Auto Workers Local 2865, the union representing academic student employees, filed eight complaints with UCLA Employee and Labor Relations, alleging the university violated the contract for academic workers by failing to provide health insurance for student employees who work 25 percent time or more.

[Related: UC, UAW Local 2865 reach agreement, avert finals week strike]

Jonathan Koch, recording secretary for UAW and a graduate student in music said at least 30 graduate students in seven different departments told him they had difficulties accessing health care. For instance, some had trouble making appointments online with the Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center or picking up prescriptions. Affected departments include economics, comparative literature and political science.

Koch said after meeting with Ashe Center officials, he learned that graduate students with fees-pending status could access Ashe services as a temporary solution.

Zeke Trautenberg, a head steward for UAW and a Spanish and Portuguese graduate student, said that while fees were due on Sept. 20, he received notification that he had not paid his tuition on Sept. 22. Trautenberg added he immediately requested meetings with officials from UCLA Labor Relations, but they declined to see him.

In a statement released by UCLA media relations Tuesday, officials said they asked affected departments to issue fee waivers for academic graduate student employees and graduate student researchers in fees-pending status by 5 p.m. Tuesday.

“The Graduate Division is determining who was impacted, and what the outstanding issues and root causes were,” the statement said. “The issue will be discussed at an upcoming meeting for department chairs, where recommendations will be made to prevent this problem from recurring, and how to keep students better informed of their status and access to resources.”

The statement also said that approximately 1,100 students currently have fees-pending status, but only about 62 students had fee remission issues. The statement also said 35 academic student employees currently have payment pending, but all 62 are expected to receive fee deferrals by the end of the day.

“Fee remissions can be delayed for many reasons, such as when a student does not complete paperwork on time, when a department must wait to finalize teaching assistant appointments, or the hiring department has a high volume of requests to process,” the UCLA statement said.

Mike Miller, a UAW representative and a mathematics graduate student, said he does not think that most of the fee remission issues were due to unsubmitted paperwork. He added he thinks UCLA should come up with a permanent solution to what he has heard is a recurring problem.

Ashe Center sent an email to graduate students with fees-pending status to assure them they would still have access to the full range of services at Ashe Center without incurring out-of-pocket costs. The email also said students with fees-pending status who seek outside medical care or pick up a prescription from any pharmacy other than Ashe, will incur the full fee for those services or medications until their status is updated.

[Related: Petition calls for negotiations with UAW Local 2865]

Trautenberg said he thinks Ashe’s solution does not address health insurance issues for students who live farther away from school who need access to doctors and pharmacies close to home. He added he thinks UCLA should reimburse students who incur out-of-pocket costs.

Trautenberg added some students have still had trouble making doctor appointments at Ashe, and one said he had used part of his stipend to cover tuition without his consent.

UAW will hold a rally Wednesday morning at Murphy Hall to protest what they call a lack of access to health coverage.