The bargaining session with the university on March 12 2007 saw disagreement on the crucial issues of paid leave for graduate employees and on transparency in appointment/reappointment policies in departments。

The session began with an agreement （in fact our first signed tentative agreement of this bargaining cycle）on the inclusion of ethnicity as a criterion in the article on non-discrimination。 The university suggested using ‘ethnic origin’ instead， and we agreed。

However, the university then rejected both our packaged proposals where we responded to the university‘s attack on the union’s staff position and also included several of our counter-proposals， including a proposal on paid bereavement and parental leave and on an arbitration procedure in case the university reneged on our current procedure of processing GEO dues forms.

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The Board of Trustees, in a valiant effort to curtail costs to UMass students, unanimously passed a FEE INCREASE of 3.4%! (seen soon in your bill for those returning next year). GEO members and leaders went to the Board of Trustees (BOT) meeting on March 14th to demand a roll back in fees. The trustees responded that without this increase, buildings will not be fixed or new ones built, that the plan to hire new faculty will not happen, and that without this increase President of UMass, Jack Wilson, cannot ask for a 15% increase in his salary. For those keeping track, Jack Wilson makes $400,000 a year and John Lombardi makes $347,499. Obviously, they are both suffering in hard times and really need the boost to stay above the middle class level of income!

Our own Grievance Coordinator, Nate Johnson, was distributing the following piece of Lombardi money…

With a nice little message on the back…you may have seen this…

Nate, went even further and gave Lombardi himself a copy of our demand for a cheaper Chancellor…here’s a picture:

For pictures of the event visit here http://www.squeezedbyfees.blogspot.com/

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In order to Roll Back our fees, we are gonna need to put a lot of pressure on the one party in the Legislator. This Tuesday a group of GEO members and staff will be visiting different legislators and if you are deeply interested in going please let me know ASAP email me at politicaladvocate(at)geouaw.org. In the meantime take a look at this chart to see how we stack up against our peer institutions.

How does the Graduate Service fee impact your life, did you expect to pay any fees when you were accepted here? or were the fees a surprise, use the comments below to share your story.

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Session 4 March 2, 2007 1:30 PM to 4 PM

The fourth bargaining session between GEO and the University was a bit frustrating, as it became clear that the members of the University’s bargaining team had not done their homework before presenting their healthcare proposal, thereby slowing down the process due to a delay in getting necessary information. Despite this, some progress was made.

Article 35: As noted above, the University was unable to provide us with the information we needed to respond to their proposal on healthcare. Not only did this slow down the process – as it meant we were forced to wait until the next session to address this vital issue – it also indicated that the University made a proposal to eliminate all caps on co-pays without any idea of what impact this would have on those of us using the health insurance! Nevertheless, we remain hopeful that we’ll be able to take this up at the next session (on March 16) and that we’ll be able to reach a conclusion that maintains the great coverage we have.

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