Second Session Summary
GEO members,
The second wage negotiation session wrapped up Monday, March 9th, with the Administration presenting their counter-proposal of a mere 3% raise to the minimum wage in Year 4, compared to our proposed 44% to guarantee a living wage to our members.
Key Takeaways from the second session:
The University Administration admits that the annual minimum wage proposed by the GEO is in accordance with living standards for Champaign county
The Administration offers a mere 3% increase to the minimum in year 4, which would still be insufficient to cover its own estimate for nine-month cost of living
The Administration offers the “campus wage program” for year 5 -- this gives no guarantee of a wage increase (see below for more information)
The Administration claims that raises above the minimum are not a mandatory subject of bargaining at this time and declines to discuss them (see below for more information)
The session concluded with the Administration agreeing to get back to us with more details on the Campus Wage Program as well as date, time and location for the third session. It will be held sometime later this month, to be agreed upon by the GEO Bargaining Team and the Administration.
Within that time, we need your help organizing so that we can continue to present a united front to the Administration as graduate workers. Here are some things you can do to help the effort to win living wages for all workers:
If you have any information about how salaries for graduate workers are determined in your department, please contact Bargaining Team Member Christopher Marry at christopherjmarry@gmail.com. This information will be helpful in assessing how departments which pay some workers above the minimum or have complex pay structures will implement our proposal.
We want to be fully transparent about the bargaining process with our membership, and this means clear and consistent communication. Our Communications Committee is doing its best to accomplish this, but can use some help to lighten the load on its current membership. If you are able and willing to sign up for discrete tasks, such as individual social media posts, without committing to the committee, email commcomm@uigeo.org for the information and access you will need.
We want to hear from you! If you have and are willing to share your own reasons for needing a living wage as a graduate worker, send them to us! They can be written or recorded, Tweet-length or full paragraphs; we want to be able to present as many stories as possible to show the varied needs of our bargaining unit and make it clear that our fight is for all graduate workers.
Our next General Membership Meetings (GMMs) will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, 3/11/20 at noon and 5:30pm in the Channing Murray Foundation. We will be discussing this bargaining session in more detail then, so please come if you have questions or want to get involved! See the Facebook event for more information.
Full Summary of Bargaining Session
Raise to the minimum
GEO’s initial proposal sought a living wage, in accordance with the MIT living wage standards for Urbana-Champaign and the specific added costs dealt to grad workers, namely, “student fees.” This would amount to a 44% raise. However, the administration tried to spin this principle by arguing that the MIT living wage standard should be calculated based on full-time year-round employment, and that their current and proposed wages exceed that rate -- though when pressed by the GEO bargaining team, they agreed that the annual living wage for Champaign county was above $25,000.
GEO members present in the bargaining room were disturbed to hear that the Administration determines a living wage based on the assumption that all grad workers are single adults between the ages of 22 and 35, with no children or dependents, and with no health costs exceeding what McKinley Health Services and our limited student health insurance covers -- despite what we know to be true based both on the demographic information of our members and all of our lived experiences. We were incensed to hear that the Administration does not think grad workers work enough to earn a living wage, and that we should consider our tuition waivers and health insurance as part of our pay. (Ironically, grad workers are prohibited from receiving tuition waivers for work assignments above 67% FTE.) The GEO’s lead negotiators reiterated our stance that the University Administration has a responsibility to pay graduate employees a living wage, highlighting the dire situation of international students who cannot work during summer break, cannot get an assistantship over 50% or outside the University, and thus have to survive around the year on the wages earned in the nine-month period of University employment alone.
Campus wage program
In their counter-proposal, the Administration offered us the “campus wage program” (CWP) for year 5, which effectively sets minimum wages by decree rather than by bargaining. When pressed by the GEO bargaining team, the Administration’s team admitted that they did not have any say in the CWP, which is determined solely by the Provost, the Chancellor’s Office, and the University President’s Office. GEO’s Lead Negotiators brought attention to the fact that the CWP neither guarantees a positive wage increase (it has been set at 0% in recent years) nor prevents a negative wage “increase,” but the Administration stated they do not have and would not add any mechanism to prevent an effective decrease in wages besides their “intent” to not do so.
Appointments/reappointments
A key point in GEO’s initial proposal was the elimination of the distinction between “appointments” and “re-appointments” . This seeks to prevent misuse of the contract language to deny “re-appointment” raises to graduate workers, which occurred after the ratification of the most recent contract.
The Administration retained the distinction in its counter-proposal, claiming that it viewed the scope of the renegotiation to be limited to the minimum wage only. Nothing in the language of the wage reopener clause supports such an interpretation. When pressed to justify their position, the Administration claimed that the intent of both parties in 2018 was to only allow bargaining on the minimum. The GEO disagreed and clarified that the reopener clause states that Article XIV is to be reopened to negotiate wages, and refers to the entire wage article.
If you are interested in learning more about the GEO wage re-reopener or would like to get involved, please attend the March GMM or email us at geo@uigeo.org.
In Solidarity,
Graduate Employees’ Organization
809 S. 5th St., Geneva Room
Champaign, IL 61820
Email: geo@uigeo.org