William Spriggs Was the Economist Who Fought for the Entire Working Class

As a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin—where he earned his master’s degree in economics in 1979 and PhD in economics in 1984—Spriggs served as copresident of the Teaching Assistants’ Association (American Federation of Teachers, Local 3220), a groundbreaking campus labor union that fought a successful battle to expand collective bargaining rights for graduate students.