What’s at stake! Bargaining Session #19
Response to the Tutor In Action on Reading Day 12/8
Last Thursday December 8th, our Union decided to hold an all day all night Tutor In to support our undergraduate students in successfully completing their finals. Our plan was to stay after the Union closed, as we had communicated to all of our members and supporters. We showed up as a community of committed graduate educators and workers to make our labor visible and defend quality access to public education. With 160 graduate workers teaching over 60 subjects throughout 12 hours to more than 100 undergrads, we showed once again that the University works because WE DO.
However the University administration not only does not respect us nor our labor by not giving us a fair contract despite bargaining for over 9 months, but they demonstrated that they do not respect public education. After graduate workers peacefully worked at the Illini Union and offered undergraduate students free food and educational assistance, the University administration decided to escalate in the most unacceptable and destructive manner. They sent in six armed police officers to kick out the remaining 100+ graduate workers with their students under threat of trespassing.
In other words, the administration prefers to criminalize graduate workers and their students for providing quality education services and even throwing them into jail for trespassing in the place they work, study and even live. The intimidation of graduate workers by armed police officers hired by higher education institutions is not a first, as we are currently seeing in the massive University of California strike. This use of intimidation against graduate workers who were simply doing their work is completely unacceptable and destructive to the right of public higher education. After all, graduate workers provide over 20% of all undergraduate class hours taught at UIUC, and over 30% of first-year course hours. Absolutely, nothing barred the University administration from allowing us to work at the Union. If they really cared about “transformative learning experiences” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion”, they should have respected our labor instead of repressing it.
As we approach our last bargaining session of the semester, let us remember as a Union what is at stake. For the University administration it is not enough to cut the pay of over 200 TAs that were promised a higher salary in Fall 2022, for which the GEO filed an Unfair Labor Practice against the administration for breaking labor law. Rather, their completely vile and cruel bad faith bargaining tactics have pushed nearly 3,000 TAs and GAs into the most austere working conditions in decades at UIUC. Not being able to pay credit card debt nor student loans, having to stretch meals and groceries because our accounts are close to empty, not knowing how to pay rent next month, the anxiety of overdraft fees from banks, hours of incessant search for affordable child care on a miserable stipend, the inability to go to a doctor’s appointment or having to postpone surgeries because we simply cannot afford it, and even the inability to afford travel tickets to visit family and friends over winter break, are the many things this administration is solely responsible for. We will not tolerate more suffering from the administration and we will keep showing with our conviction, passion, solidarity and POWER that when WE FIGHT, WE WIN.
Last Bargaining Session of the Semester
Please join our last Bargaining Session of the semester on Thursday 12/15 from 1:30pm-5:30pm at the YMCA Latzer Hall (1001 S Wright St, Champaign)! Sign up for a role to support your bargaining team here https://tinyurl.com/GEOBARGROLES. Let’s end the semester strong with a clear message to admin that we will continue to defend and fight for the working conditions that will allow us to provide a first-rate education for our students!
[image description: a flyer with a light blue background. On the top, a picture of people rallying outdoors in The Quad, holding signs, and chanting. An image of a megaphone with waves of sound in the upper right. Black and white text with green highlights reads, “FULL CONTRACT BARGAINING SESSION #19 12/15/22 1:45 PM - 5:30 PM CT”. In the paragraph below, “We’ve built power together and are seeing movement! Let’s keep it going until we win a fair contract!” A smaller text below reads “On Thursday, December 15th, GEO’s Bargaining Team will be negotiating with university administration on topics of access and justice, wages and waivers, and health and safety in our contract. The bargaining session will be from 2pm-5pm, and the bargaining team will caucus with members before and after the session from 1:45-2pm & 5-5:30pm. To the right is a white logo with the letters “GEO” inside. At the bottom, black text reads YMCA Latzer Hall. Please wear a mask! Childcare, food & coffee provided.]
In Solidarity,
Graduate Employees’ Organization
809 S. 5th St., Geneva Room
Champaign, IL 61820
Email: geo@uigeo.org