This is the WFHB Local News for Wednesday, March 10th, 2021.

Later in the program, we have an excerpt from last week’s edition of Interchange - our public affairs program that gets to the questions that have shaped how we understand ourselves.

The excerpt comes from a program titled UBI and Utopia: Part Two of the Automation Ruse. It features guest Aaron Benanav, a researcher at Humboldt University of Berlin and an economic historian. More in today’s feature report.

Also coming up in the next half hour, we have Better Beware - your weekly consumer-watchdog segment hosted and produced by Richard Fish.

But first, your local news brief:

On Thursday, March 11th, the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition will hold a picket line in front of Indiana University Bloomington Provost Lauren Robel’s office building. The provost rejected the coalition’s request for an in-person meeting to discuss the coalition’s calls to end mandatory fees poverty level wages. 

The picket line comes on the heels of an exchange of heated letters between the graduate worker’s coalition and the provost’s office, in which the coalition decried the university’s compensation packages as below a living wage, and described the mandatory and international student fees as a pay to work scheme, where graduate students have to pay their employer in order to teach. One member of the coalition put it this way:

“Graduate instructors teach college level classes but live in poverty. Our teaching and our education suffer because we are working extra jobs and scraping by.”

The provost’s office responded to the letter by rejecting all of the coalition’s claims, and by stating that the concept of a living wage could not be applied to part-time graduate workers.

Cole Nelson, and active member of the Coalition, told WFHB that graduate students with SAA’s, or student academic appointments, regularly work more than 20 hours per week.

“I’m sure just about every graduate student who has an SAA will firmly disagree with with Lauren Robel.”

In response, the graduate workers published another letter which noted that they have to pay mandatory university fees out of their stipends. The coalition noted that waived tuition scholarships are not income, and cannot be used to pay bills, for example.

The coalition contrasted their wages by noting that Provost Lauren Robel received a three hundred thousand dollar compensation increase in the year 2020 alone, bringing above $888,000.

Monroe County Council 

The Monroe County Council considered a Salary Ordinance Amendment regarding the county Financial Director. Auditor Catherine Smith stated the Financial Director would move form a 35 to a 40 hour a week work schedule.

Smith proposed covering the additional hour expenses, of approximately 8 thousand five hundred dollars annually, with the Auditor’s Ineligible Fund. County attorney Margie Rice stated it is not illegal to have an exempt employee work over 40 hours a week. She spoke with Smith about additional compensation for overtime.

Smith stated the contractor would be phased out and the Financial Directors workload would increase. Council member Eric Spoonmore expressed concern for the increased workload.

Smith stated a second person to assist with the job is needed. Council members unanimously approved the salary ordinance amendment.

A Bipartisan Police Reform Bill Passes Key Senate Committee

State Rep. and Chair of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus Robin Shackleford talked to WFHB in late January. We revisit that interview to receive an update on House Bill 1006 (Photo courtesy of Indiana House Democrats).

A bipartisan police reform bill passed through the Indiana Senate Committee on Corrections and Criminal Law on ...