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 25^th, 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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The GEO bargaining team met with the university on Tuesday, September 11^th, with nearly 40 members in attendance. We presented the University with a partial package composed of our most important issues: Fee reduction, Diversity funding, Health Care Protection, & Childcare, with a contract duration of 3 years.

GEO’s bargaining team came into the session hoping to signal to the administration we were ready to bargain: reducing our wage demands from 6% per year to 5% per year and offering to drop our most expensive fee proposal: a reduction in the curriculum fee (the per-hour fee departments are charged to hire graduate employees) in favor of focusing on a phase-out of the graduate service fee over three-years. (Please note that since these proposals were made as a package we are not locked into anything and can readjust our demands if we choose.)

The University rejected GEO’s proposal for 5% wage increases in each of the three years of the contract, instead offering 2.5% in the first year and 2% in the second and third year. They did suggest that they may still be able to offer as much as a 5% raise in a one year contract. Over the course of the three year contract they claim that they simply do not have the financial resources. GEO members’ in attendance pressed them hard on this issue: raising the fact that the income of a typical GEO member makes them eligible for heating fuel assistance and free food from the food bank. The administration had no answer to this, nor to the question of their own sky-rocketing salaries when it was raised. They feigned total and complete ignorance of the latter issue despite the fact that this was a major issue in the faculty union’s bargaining this year. In her analysis of the Umass Administration done this past spring, Professor Stephanie Luce provided the estimate that the total number of administrators has increased 21% since 2003/2004, total salary has gone up by 51%, and the average salary per administrator has increased by 25%. As this analysis demonstrates GEO’s position is that it is not a matter of money, but of priority, and the Administration is simply choosing to distribute its funds to the extreme upper levels of an ever-expanding Umass bureaucracy.

It should also be noted that with the exception of wage increases and fee rollbacks our key demands are, for the most part, non-monetary. Our efforts to reform diversity funding on campus are largely focused on implementing procedures for the fair and equal allocation of fellowships, as well as ensuring graduate employee participation in the decision-making process. Neither of these would cost the University any money, yet they are so far aggressively opposed. It is not so much a problem of the amount of money, but rather a problem of the oversight and distribution of this money. Despite the fact that a number of GEO members in attendance raised the issue of diversity funding and its importance, the UMass’s bargaining team refused to answer any of the many questions concerning diversity funding. They pointed to the absence of “diversity expert” Graduate Dean John Mullin, whose only past contribution to the discussion has been to reject any improvements to graduate school affirmative action initiatives. They offered to ensure Dean Mullin was in attendance at the next bargaining session to attempt to address these questions. GEO members concerned about these issues should plan on attending that session, which is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 25^th at 9 am in the Campus Center.

In one other significant exchange the University stated that “if healthcare is a holdup” to signing a contract, they may be willing to negotiate over the longstanding caps on co-payments they have so far insisted on eliminating. In essence, the University has admitted that they are using our healthcare as a bargaining chip to attempt to distract us from other important issues.

While we are still far apart on many issues the GEO bargaining team remains hopeful that the University is interested in resolving this dispute. The attendance of GEO members at the bargaining sessions clearly helps to maintain the administration’s focus on negotiating a fair contract for GEO members.

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Attend Bargaining

Tuesday, Sept 11th 9am Campus Center 903

All GEO members are invited to attend the next bargaining session this Tuesday, Sept. 11^th at 9 am in the Campus Center 903. As we did at two sessions in May, let’s pack the room!

Bargaining Update

Wednesday August 29th

At the July 9th bargaining session, GEO’s bargaining team delivered the membership’s demand to the administration: a 3 year contract that included improvements in the critical areas of diversity funding, greater access to childcare, fee reductions, and the maintenance of our health coverage. So, on Wednesday, August 29^th, the University responded, passing two package proposals across the table: one, a contract with a duration of 1 year, the other for a duration of 3 years. This ‘choice’ was, of course, only nominal, as both contracts were the same in that they fail to address our core issues in any substantive way. There was no improved childcare support, no increased diversity funding, no reduction of fees, and still their insistence on dismantling our health care by removing the longstanding caps on co-payments for prescription drugs, emergency room visits and more. Moreover, the raises offered in their most recent proposal are just 2.5% in the first year and 2% in the second and third year, not coming close to keeping up with inflation or the expected fee increases. This contrasts with the one year contract wage offer of 2.5% with an additional 1% pool to bring up the GEO minimum stipend..

Nevertheless, there is every reason to believe we can achieve a fair contract. For months, the university had refused to bargain over a 3 year contract, saying that any contract with a duration longer than 1 year would be ‘impossible.’ GEO, however, made it clear that a 3 year contract was our priority, that we consider duration to be an important issue. The pressure that we have put on the university over the summer, both outside and inside the bargaining room, has forced them to engage with us over this issue. And though we will have to fight to make progress on our other issues, we have demonstrated that we have the strength and solidarity to set the terms of the debate.

Not only must we keep the pressure on the university, we must use this semester to escalate our tactics and let the university how serious we are about our contract.

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