Bargaining Session Summary #24—Admin Continues to Offer a Pay Cut after Inflation
Table of Contents:
Executive Summary (Summary in a Flyer),
Bargaining Session TL;DR/Summary
Administration provided a comprehensive counterproposal.
Admin accepted GEO’s proposal for summer healthcare for the duration of the contract.
Admin’s proposal offered a 4% wage increase to the minimum in the first year of the contract, the same increase they offered in September 2022. The difference between the cost of the wage proposal Admin presented last semester and the one they presented yesterday was a 0.2% increase.
Admin rejected GEO’s proposals for fee waivers, childcare, dependent healthcare, and health and safety protections.
Around 50 GEO members walked out of the bargaining session to protest Admin’s unacceptable wage proposal while GEO’s Bargaining Team continued negotiations and demanded mediation.
What happened in the session?
At yesterday’s session, Admin presented a comprehensive counterproposal which included all of the economic and non-economic proposals remaining on the table. GEO members were encouraged when Admin accepted GEO’s proposal for summer healthcare for the duration of their five year contract. In admin’s proposal, it includes a possibility that they may bundle summer and spring healthcare. This means that if someone has a spring appointment their healthcare coverage will roll into the summer semester.
WHAT WAS MEMBERS’ RESPONSE?
When Admin presented a wages proposal offering a 4% wage increase to the minimum wage in the first year of the contract, the same increase they offered in September 2022 – a substantial pay cut after inflation – members were extremely dissatisfied and angry.
As compared to their previous proposal, Admin’s proposal for the remaining years of the contract offered an increase of an additional:
$0 in year 1 ($20,072)
$24 in year 2 ($20,724)
$25 in year 3 ($21,450)
$200 in year 4 ($22,200)
$240 in year 5 ($22,900)
Admin’s offer was not retroactive, meaning they want to refuse to provide back pay for the past 7 months since GEO’s contract expired in August. Admin continued to reject GEO’s proposals for fee waivers, childcare, dependent healthcare, and health and safety protections.
GEO members caucused, expressed their frustration with Admin’s disrespectful proposal, and decided that after nearly a year of bargaining, the only way to move forward was to demand mediation, a form of dispute resolution using a neutral third party to facilitate agreements when the parties remain far apart on proposals.
Admin claimed that GEO’s wages proposal was “cost prohibitive” and “not realistic.” Upon returning from caucus, GEO members presented data showing that in fact, when accounting for the cost of living and healthcare, GEO’s proposal lands UIUC graduate workers toward the middle of the peer institutions identified by Admin themselves. In contrast, Admin’s proposal lands UIUC in the bottom 3 among peer institutions. Further, admin budgeted $7.65 billion for the U of I system in the 2023 fiscal year, a 6.6% increase and fundraised $2.7 billion in “the most ambitious and successful fundraising effort in Illinois history.” Meanwhile, UIUC invests 62% less than the median of public institutions in tuition revenue for teaching. As you can see in the graph below, Admin can pay us fair wages that will both increase our quality of life and meet the standards of our peer institutions in the Big Ten and those determined by the Board of Trustees.
*sq= status quo under the expired contract
*adm= UIUC administration’s proposal
[Graph shows bar graphs in blue with Northwestern at the top, followed by UCLA, UCB, IU Bloomington, Rutgers, U of Wisconsin, UW-Seattle, U Michigan, UIUC (GEO's proposal; bar graph in orange), Ohio State, Minnesota, U of Iowa, Penn State, Michigan State, UT Austin, Purdue, U of Maryland, UF, UIUC (admin's proposal; bar graph in orange), UIUC (status quo/now; bar graph in orange), and UNL at the bottom]
How do members feel after seeing the Administration's response?
After hearing several powerful testimonials from members on the harmful impact of wages and fees on their jobs, lives, and health, GEO lead negotiators Nachiketa Adhikari and Sam Froiland asked members in the room: “GEO members, are we willing to accept this proposal? Are we willing to accept a proposal that does not meet inflation and does not meet our needs?” Members in the room responded with a resounding “NO!” Members expressed feeling disgruntled, disrespected, and frustrated. One member asked, “is this a joke?” Around 50 GEO members stood together and walked out, chanting, “What’s outrageous? Unfair wages!” GEO’s Bargaining Team then handed Admin a form to sign requesting mediation.
What’s next?
Admin offered summer healthcare because members have been organizing their departments, signing new membership cards, talking to faculty and undergrads, and showing up to the bargaining sessions. We can win a wage increase above inflation too, but it will require MORE organizing, MORE mobilizing, and escalation. On the 5-year anniversary of GEO’s 2018 strike which secured guaranteed tuition waivers ensuring access to education for all, it is more important now than ever to give everything we’ve got to FIGHT for wages, healthcare, and childcare, so we can all work and live in a healthy and safe environment.
Do you want to accept admin’s 4% wage proposal? If not, here is what we must do together!
Join us for a march and bargaining session on Thursday, March 9, 2023. We march at 11:00am, from Swanlund to Illini Union with parents and families united for fair wages, childcare, and health care. Bring a pot or pan and bang it in front of Swanlund! Bargaining session from 12:00 to 4:00 at Illini Union Rooms B & C.
Volunteers make the bargaining sessions run! Sign up for a role to help with check-in, notetaking, or childcare here: https://linktr.ee/geobarg
Invite your friends to the session. You can use this text template https://tinyurl.com/geobargtext Now is the time to show up for yourself and your community. Tell the Administration that we will not take this laughable movement. Coffee & childcare provided. You don’t have to stay the whole time, and can bring other work—your mere presence in the room is powerful!
Sign and share GEO’s petition with colleagues, faculty, undergrads, and community supporters demanding that the Administration immediately sign GEO’s contract proposals for wages, fees, healthcare, access and justice to uphold the rights of graduate employees at UIUC: https://tinyurl.com/GEOPetition23
If you have friends or colleagues who are not GEO members, ask them to sign a membership card: https://www.uiucgeo.org/join#member-form (you can also pick up membership cards in the GEO office, 809 S 5th St, in McKinley Foundation, during office hours Mon 4-6 pm, Tues 12-2 pm, Wed 1-3:30 pm, or Thurs 1-2:30 pm, or email geo@uigeo.org)
If you would like to host a GEO town hall / meeting in your department, GEO Stewards Council can help you with planning, provide slides and materials, and cover the cost of food. Reach out to Stewards Council Co-Chairs Grace and Clara at sc@uigeo.org.
Image description: "A green flyer for the GEO's 25th Full Contract Bargaining Session on March 9thd, 2023 from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Illini Union Rooms B & C. “March at 11:00am @Swanlund to Illini Union with parents and families united for CHILDCARE, fair wages and health care. Bring a pot or pan and bang it in front of Swanlund! The University works because we do." Please wear a mask! Childcare, food, and coffee provided."
After Bargaining Podcast
As we send this summary expeditiously, please tune in later tonight for the podcast episode. The episode will be a more detailed summary of what happened in the session, while centering one of the lead negotiator’s voice (Sam).
GEO’s 2018 Strike 5-Year Anniversary: The Struggle for Access to Education for All
Five years ago today, GEO members were out on the picket lines for day 6 of our two-week long strike. We are inspired by the memory of our fellow graduate workers who risked their livelihoods to fight for quality education for future generations of workers and students. In 2018, the Administration threatened to remove guaranteed tuition waivers. The struggle of GEO to protect this essential benefit reverberated not only throughout the UIUC campus, where the majority of graduate students could no longer attend UIUC without tuition waivers, but globally, as Admin’s model threatened to become a blueprint destroying affordable public education worldwide. As we engage in our current struggle to prioritize the health, safety, and economic security of the workers who make the UIUC campus run, we remember and learn from our predecessors who fought for access to education for all of us!
Learn more about GEO’s strike:
Picture from the front lines of the 2018 strike
In Solidarity,
Graduate Employees’ Organization
809 S. 5th St., Geneva Room
Champaign, IL 61820
Email: geo@uigeo.org