Summary of Bargaining Session 13: A New Counter-Proposal from Admin
Summary of 9/27 Bargaining Session
During yesterday’s bargaining session our lead negotiators, Lesley Owens (English) and Sam Froiland (History), came prepared to answer the University administration’s questions regarding our last proposal of September 19th. The session began with a sidebar–where the bargaining team leads on both sides meet privately with notetakers outside of the bargaining room to talk privately and get a temperature check on how bargaining is going–after which the administration presented a new proposal. We were hoping that after a successful protest at the Board of Trustees meeting, with media coverage by the News Gazette and Daily Illini, that the administration would consider dropping their package proposal. Instead, the administration's new proposal of wages is an increase of less than a lunch on Green St per month. Keep reading to see what happened!
WHAT DO THEY (THE ADMINISTRATION) WANT?
The administration, with Robb Craddock as lead negotiator, proposed another package proposal with an increase of $72 per year from their $20,000/year proposal. This translates to a mere increase of $8 a month, which represents only 6.45% of the semester fees domestic students pay and 5.68% of the semester fees international students pay.
After submitting this package proposal with only a 0.36% wage increase from their last proposal, admin stated, “if you want additional things” they may reduce even further the amount of wages and healthcare offered to us. Admin explicitly asked GEO to “withdraw a certain number of proposals,” including issues like mental healthcare and bereavement leave, “in order to focus [admin’s] resources to impact the greatest number of people in the greatest possible way.” Robb, does a proposal offering a wage increase significantly below inflation and limiting year-round healthcare “impact the greatest number of people in the greatest possible way”?
The administration also suggested that they were only willing to discuss either bereavement leave or higher wages, and is generally pushing towards a direction where all they are willing to offer is a compromise on only one of the many demands we have been fighting for. Robb always likes to portray us as “unreasonable” for fighting for better conditions. Does choosing between the bereavement of your best friend and a living wage sound reasonable to you? Don’t forget to check our memes and share them with your friends!
WHAT DO WE WANT?
The GEO wants the administration to offer a non-package proposal that gives us a living wage, year-round healthcare (including mental healthcare), an expansion of leaves and holidays including paid bereavement leave, amongst other issues regarding access and justice that are of significant concern to us GEO members. The administration’s second package counter proposal offers none of the above and the administrationcontinues to ignore our demands of eliminating student semester fees, including child-care subsidies and additional protections against overwork and discrimination. We want them to respect our demands! Two of our members expressed how they felt after the session.
“Robb constantly interrupted our female-presenting negotiator, Lesley Owens, and seemed as if he was not paying attention as she was speaking. This was not something that he seemed to do with he male-presenting negotiators. I felt very uncomfortable with the constant misogyny.” - Preethi
“Hearing Robb simply state that he cares about giving us a fair contract while trying everything to minimize and ignore our concerns made me experience actual physical pain.” - Abhi
How can I and my co-workers/friends participate and support?
The stronger our Union is, the stronger the contract we will win! Hence, we need to transform our anger and frustrations into organizing power. Join us for our next bargaining session on Friday October 7th starting from 2:15pm-5:00pm at the University YMCA Latzer Hall, room 114 and consider supporting the bargaining team by volunteering for a role here: https://tinyurl.com/GEOBARGROLES. No task is too big nor too small for YOU or your co-workers to get involved in the Union. Below are some good places to start!
Post the organizing TO-DO list in your office and share with friends so you can commit to at least one event.
Consider sharing a testimonial during the sessions (can be done anonymously). Email barg@uigeo.org
Joining 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!
Share our “After Bargaining” podcast with your friends so they can stay tuned in to what’s happening in bargaining. Our new episode can be found on our bargaining page here: https://www.uiucgeo.org/full-contract-bargaining-2022
Attend Bargaining Session 14!
[Image description: A flyer with a yellow background and an image of a megaphone with waves of sound in the upper right. Black and white text with blue highlights reads, FULL CONTRACT BARGAINING SESSION #14 10/7/22. In a paragraph below, smaller black text reads, On Friday, October 7 from 2:15 to 5:00PM, 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. To the right is a white logo with the letters “GEO” inside. At the bottom, black text reads University YMCA Latzer Hall, Room 114. Please wear a mask if attending in-person! Childcare, food & coffee provided. Online option available as an accommodation for public health concerns. Email officer1@uigeo.org by October 6th at 11:59pm.]
The next bargaining session will be on Friday, October 7 from 2:15-5:00pm at the University YMCA Latzer Hall, Room 114. Join us and text a friend to come with you! Whether it will be your first bargaining session or your fourteenth, we need everybody in the room to pressure admin to listen to our demands.
Bargaining Team needs volunteers to help with:
Note taking (you’ll receive a brief training on how to do this!)
Childcare
Procuring coffee/food
Check-in
Sign up to volunteer here: https://tinyurl.com/GEOBARGROLES
New Episode of After Bargaining
Sam Froiland (History) joins podcast host and Bargaining Team member, Essam Elkorghli (Education) to bring you the most pressing updates from the bargaining session. Tune in. It is our 10th episode!!! Listen here: https://anchor.fm/after-bargaining
[Image description: A black and white photograph of Sam sitting on a chair while holding an acoustic guitar, smiling, and wearing a GEO beanie.]
[Image description: A meme in two images. The top image shows a hand hovering between two buttons labeled attending your best friend’s funeral and being paid a living wage. The bottom image shows a sweating man wiping his brow with a handkerchief.]
[Image description: Meme of Drake raising his hand and looking away as to indicate not wanting something, next to the text “making movement with a proposal” under which is Drake smiling approvingly next to the text “$8 wage increase per month”]
In Solidarity,
Graduate Employees’ Organization
809 S. 5th St., Geneva Room
Champaign, IL 61820
Email: geo@uigeo.org