Fellow workers,
Your bargaining committee, with the backing of over 50 members, met with the university’s bargaining team yesterday. We hoped for a positive response to our comprehensive proposal that would bring us closer to a tentative agreement to deliver the dignity and economic relief our members deserve. Instead, they countered with a proposal package of their own—one designed to be unacceptable and downright insulting. We have made significant and thoughtful movement but they are unwilling to meet the needs of graduate workers on campus.
They refuse to pay us a fair wage and they want us to keep paying exorbitant fees which don’t benefit grad students. Effectively, they want us to continue living in increasing poverty while they exploit our labor to run their university. And once again, they attempted to normalize these conditions by implying that by choosing to become graduate students, we’ve consciously chosen to accept poverty wages. It goes without saying that UMass has the money, but is unwilling to invest it in its graduate workforce.
They want to enshrine their highly racialized exploitation of masters students—particularly in CICS. They are still pushing for graduate workers to become Title IX mandatory reporters, which takes the power away from survivors and puts it into the hands of the administration. They still want to significantly reduce our protections from workplace harassment. And they are still refusing to budge when it comes to including our fellow workers on external fellowships—the “non-working” fellows—in the bargaining unit, insisting that only fellows working the equivalent of a 10-hour GEO assistantship should be protected by the union.
We’ve tried to be reasonable and keep this at the table. We’ve shared our data and spoken about GEO’s values and our vision for a just, fair, and dignified contract that improves the lives of graduate workers and the UMass community more broadly. But after hearing dozens of testimonials from grad workers about our economic circumstances—being forced to choose between medical needs, food security, rent, and other necessities—they’ve made it clear that they just don’t care.
They have given us a purposefully unacceptable deal after months of negotiations. Are you ready to take the action necessary to secure strong wage increases, the elimination of the Graduate Service and Engineering Fee and to protect our members from harassment?
On July 6th, Wednesday, 2:30-3:30 PM, we will be having an open organizing meeting to execute our escalation campaign against the University. This will be a space for members to come together, discuss actions we are able to take and mobilize to turn up the heat on the administration. All contributions to this campaign are welcome so come and get connected! Bring a +1! – July 6th, Wednesday, 2:30-3:30 PM on this Zoom link!
Let’s show the university administration that we need and deserve a fair and just contract; that UMass works because we do!
Solidarity,
GEO Bargaining Committee
