On May 18^th over 80 GEO members showed up to support GEO’s bargaining team in our 13th bargaining session with the University. A wide variety of departments were represented at this session, from Electrical and Computer Engineering to History; from Sociology to Computer Science; from Plant & Soil Sciences to Education to Spanish & Portuguese.

While the University appears to be taking baby steps toward responding to the increasing pressure being applied by graduate student employees and their supporters who are frustrated with 5 months of unproductive bargaining, we’re not there yet…Our bargaining team let the administration know that a contract we can support has to include improvements in all of the areas outlined below. What happens next depends on you and on the participation of all GEO members in our campaign for a contract that takes us forward instead of backwards.

At the session, the University formally made its first comprehensive economic proposal and these are the highlights:

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Comments Off on Bargaining Update from May 18 2007: What’s At Stake

The last few sessions have seen precious little progress in negotiations between your union and the university. In the absence of any word on a financial package, we have been hesitant to proceed to any agreement on substantive issues at stake, such as healthcare, childcare, parental leave, workload or appointment policies.

Thus far, the university has rejected every single substantial proposal that we have put on the table, with little in the way of suggested alternatives. These summary rejections have given us very little room to work with and have made it very difficult and frustrating to achieve any compromise. The administration’s team has rejected our proposals on fees, appointment and reappointment, healthcare and childcare, while refusing to even negotiate MOU 6, that deals with ensuring diversity among the graduate student body.

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Comments Off on Bargaining Update from April 27 2007

The eighth bargaining session between your union and UMass still did not see any word on when we will be offered a financial package. Most of the session was therefore taken up with other issues, especially a drawn-out discussion on departments’ appointment policies.

The session began on a positive note, with the University finally providing us with information we had requested about how many members go above their health-insurance co-pay limits. This will help us to formulate a comprehensive proposal on health insurance soon.
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Comments Off on Bargaining Update #8 4/9/2007

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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Comments Off on Bargaining Update #5 3/12/2007

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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Comments Off on Bargaining Update #4 3/2/07

February 16 2007 2.30 PM to 5 PM

The third bargaining session between GEO and the University saw some progress in clarifying issues around the proposals we presented (for Articles 1, 3, 10 and 15) but was ultimately inconclusive on all of them. The University also indicated that it does not have any more proposals forthcoming in the near future.

Article 1: On the issue of including all graduate student employees working in GEO-eligible or comparable positions at UMass Amherst in our bargaining unit regardless of their source of income – specifically as a result of a program where UMass Amherst grad employees are being paid on UMass Dartmouth paychecks and are therefore not able to get GEO benefits – the University said it would seek clarification about the specific programs where this was an issue.

Article 3: On the issue of incorporating MOU 13 into the article (regarding the procedure for processing GEO dues deduction forms) the university asked for an assurance that the procedure would be arbitrable in case either party did not fulfill its responsibility. We agreed to make changes that would include such an assurance.

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Comments Off on Bargaining Update #3 2/16/2007

The university started the session with an ‘impasse’ over ground rules for negotiations. The two ground rules that were contentious dealt with whether GEO members other than the bargaining committee could be present in the room, and whether we had the right to speak to the press at any point during the negotiations. The GEO bargaining committee argued that since ground rules were not mandatory in the first place, they cannot be used as a condition to start negotiations. In the end, the university agreed to move ahead without the ground rules.

The GEO bargaining team presented our entire set of proposals, and also presented actual language on Articles 1, 3, 10 and 15 in order to start negotiations on these articles. The changes proposed are available here.

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Comments Off on Bargaining Update #2 1/26/2007

The Administration’s First Priority: Gag GEO & Impose a Media Blackout.
Our Response: We Want Ground Rules Not Gag Rules!

GEO’s bargaining committee sat down with representatives of the administration on Friday, January 19th in the hopes of reaching some basic ground rules for the contract negotiations GEO will be engaging in with the UMass administration this spring.

In this first meeting GEO’s main goal was to get the university to commit to meeting for negotiations a minimum of 8 hours per month, and to agree to longer meetings where GEO’s contract proposals could be discussed in-depth and at length.

At Friday’s meeting it quickly became clear what the Administration’s top priority was: to get GEO’s bargaining committee to agree to a total media blackout on all issues related to the contract negotiations: No press releases. No conversations with reporters. No news articles. The administration wants GEO’s bargaining committee to accept a completely unnecessary and unreasonable gag rule as a central ground rule of these contract negotiations.

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Comments Off on Bargaining Update #1- 1/19/07