Summary of Bargaining Session 17
Table of Contents:
Bargaining Session 17 Summary
WHAT DO WE (GEO) WANT?
The GEO surveyed over 1,000 graduate workers in Fall 2021 to understand the interests of membership for our current contract negotiations. Non-Discrimination protections is an issue that the University is legally required to bargain with us and is something that our members overwhelmingly care about. GEO’s proposal seeks additional protected categories such as medical conditions and parental status, and provides more guidance on how to use our Grievance Procedure for discrimination claims if a graduate assistant decides to do so, instead of the Office of Access and Equity. We want the administration to not retaliate against any graduate worker that decides to pursue a grievance with the University. We also want a fair contract that is not packaged which forces us to drop all of our demands, including non-discrimination, overtime pay and the ability for us to decide the health care provider in order to accept the University’s proposals which include a meager wage increase of 4% and only 2 out of five years of summer health care. The hard work of our bargaining team was recognized by Kyle, who attended his first bargaining session yesterday.
“Attending the session in person sheds a different light on what’s going on in this process and what’s going on on both sides. There’s a different context when you actually attend one of these and gives a lot more appreciation for our bargaining team on what we have to put up together and do.” -Kyle, GEO member and first time bargaining session attendee.
WHAT DO THEY (THE ADMINISTRATION) WANT?
The University claims that because we’re proposing expansive changes to 25 out of 27 articles, we’re stalling negotiations. We want to be clear that GEO is here to win the best contract for our members, not to pay lip service to ideas of nondiscrimination or seek cosmetic changes, much less to negotiate provisions worse than the status quo, like the ones the administration is proposing around the usage of the grievance procedure to solve discrimination allegations. The current provisions of the contract allow for graduate workers, when faced with sexual harassment and retaliation, to decide between going through our grievance process or through the University’s ineffective Office of Access and Equity (OAE) to gain a remedy and effective resolution for such traumatic experiences. OAE can take several semesters to resolve, leaving many graduate workers without the ability to resolve their grievances before graduating. However, the university is proposing something worse that we currently have by requiring graduate workers to go through the useless, employer-friendly OAE before using our grievance procedure. In other words, the university seeks to be the sole decision maker in determining whether or not we were actually harassed and if we deserve a remedy.
What happens next?
The Bargaining Team has canceled the scheduled bargaining sessions of November 10th and 17th due to a variety of reasons, including personal, academic, and health. We want to ensure that the Bargaining Team is at sufficient capacity to negotiate for us in pursuit of a fair contract. We will announce the date of the next bargaining session soon.
Our current material conditions are getting more precarious as graduate workers. The only way we can improve our quality of life and make public education accessible for all graduate workers is by fighting back with our power. Here’s how you and your co-workers can get involved:
Reach out to the Stewards Co-Chairs Grace and Clara (sc@uigeo.org) to know how to talk to your friends and co-workers to inform them and get them involved.
Consider sharing a testimonial during bargaining sessions (can be done anonymously). Email barg@uigeo.org to share.
Join the bargaining team! You can nominate yourself or a friend at https://tinyurl.com/jointheBT. Questions about what that entails? Email Sam at officer1@uigeo.org!
In Solidarity,
Graduate Employees’ Organization
809 S. 5th St., Geneva Room
Champaign, IL 61820
Email: geo@uigeo.org