Bargaining Update for Tuesday, Sept. 25


Two weeks ago, nearly 40 GEO members packed the bargaining room to directly confront the University with numerous questions concerning our demands, especially over affirmative action/diversity funding, aka Memorandum of Understanding #6 (MOU6) in our contract.  The University bargaining team’s chief negotiator, Susan Chinman, was unable to answer such questions, citing the absence of “diversity expert” Graduate Dean John Mullin.  On September 25th, again with a room packed full of GEO members clad in black for solidarity, the ‘diversity expert’ was in attendance:

 

Here’s What They Claimed:

 

1) Dean Mullin was unabashed in claiming that from the GEO contract-mandated $800,000 earmarked for diversity funding, he had sole control over a roughly 100k “flex-fund” for diversity spending of his own choosing. In the course of discussion, GEO had to remind him that the money was not, in fact, his, but rather the state of Massachusetts.  Though Mullin claims that some of this money is allotted to diversity fellowships, the simple fact is that there is no way to verify this.  Nor is there a concrete policy in place that would direct Mullin in how to spend this money, nor adequate reporting on how it actually was spent.  This is the precise definition of ‘unaccountability,’ and this very lack of transparency is the exact reason why our contract must include language stipulating both the ways in which Diversity money is spent and a public report detailing who receives fellowships.

 

2) Equally unfounded was the claim that current diversity initiatives have been successful.  Mullin referred specifically to NEAGEP (Northeast Alliance for Graduate Education and Professorate), a federally program that matches diversity funding to the natural sciences.  This program has consistently been touted as the University’s ‘success story,’ claiming substantial increases in the admittance and retention of students from underrepresented populations.  But this supposed success is based solely on the amount of money given to this program.  In actuality, the increase in representation of students from ‘minority’ and underrepresented backgrounds has been negligible, and the diversity that the University claims simply is not there.  UMass cannot simply pump money into a broken system:  what is needed is dramatic and rigorous structural change that gets diversity fellowships to the people who need them.  Only by changing the way in which affirmative action happens on this campus can UMass expect to become accessible to people of all races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, and class status, regardless of citizenship.

 

Despite these glaring inadequacies, the University refuses to make any movement on this issue, and Mullin has flatly refused to give up his personal control of the process. At the close of the session the University rejected our 3 year contract proposal (see the geo website at www.geouaw.org for our proposal), not only saying “no” to improving transparent and accountable diversity funding, but also rejecting improved funding for childcare, the reduction and eventual phase out of the graduate service fees, and fair wage increases. In their three-year proposal they offered 2.5% in the first year and 2% in each additional year. In addition their “offer” again included removing the caps on co-payments.

 

GEO members have been making powerful statements at the bargaining sessions–the presence of large numbers of members displays a membership that not only is determined to get a fair contract — but knows that direct and participatory action is the only way to get it.  We now need the membership to continue driving this contract campaign by organizing and participating in upcoming actions that will put more pressure on the University.

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