{"id":57,"date":"2007-10-10T13:18:58","date_gmt":"2007-10-10T18:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geouaw.org\/blog\/2007\/10\/10\/bargaining-update-for-thursday-oct-4th\/"},"modified":"2007-10-10T13:18:58","modified_gmt":"2007-10-10T18:18:58","slug":"bargaining-update-for-thursday-oct-4th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geouaw.org\/blog\/2007\/10\/10\/bargaining-update-for-thursday-oct-4th\/","title":{"rendered":"Bargaining Update for Thursday, Oct. 4th"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Thursday, October 04, 2007, GEO met with the University once again, submitting a package proposal that contained the core issues most critical to our union, such as MOU6\/affirmative action, fee reductions, improved childcare, and the protection of our health benefits (go to www.geouaw.org to see GEO\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s complete proposal to the University). However, we showed that we were serious about bargaining by making significant movement towards the University by proposing a contract of a duration of 15 months, so that it would expire at the end of September 2008. Despite our good faith bargaining, the University has shown, once again, that they are unwilling to seriously address our proposals, and continues to take a wholly unacceptable attitude towards our core issues. Some key points:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00b7 About our proposal to eliminate student fees (Article 34 in the GEO contract), University Chief negotiator Susan Chinman stated that our proposal \u00e2\u20ac\u0153will be and will continue to be rejected,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and that there was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no chance\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that we would see a reduction of fees that have grown by 126% since 2001, and continue to rise. These fees represent at least 10% of the yearly stipend of an average UMass graduate student employee. So long as the University has full control over our fees (and, as of now, they do) they will continue to grow, potentially overtaking any wage increases that we win.
\nIn reference to grad student fees, the University stated that they are dependent on the $1.2 million that the graduate service fees generate, and that if they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get them from us, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have to get them from somewhere. This is an outright lie: it is clearly a matter of priority of management, not a simple lack of funding, that prevents them from easing the financial burden of graduate student employees. While grad employees struggle month-to-month to pay the rent, the UMass Board of Trustees approves over a million dollars for the renovation of a boathouse.. While GEO members must use government food stamps in order to eat, University administrators receive exorbitant pay raises. The University’s top priorities appear to include ensuring financial hardship for graduate students.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n


\n\u00c2\u00b7 The University again stated their resistance to bargaining over diversity funding\/MOU6. On the one hand, they expressed a willingness to give a detailed report and demographic breakdown. But, the fact is that the information they are willing to supply is already publicly available, and without any contractually guaranteed oversight, the university cannot be held accountable. Graduate Dean Mullin has said that it is his \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcresponsibility\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 to manage diversity funding, but it is clear that the University is refusing to act responsibly by refusing to allow those who are affected by diversity funding to have any control over it whatsoever. It is well known that UMass\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 diversity funding is broken, and it is inexcusable for the University to fail take any measures to fix it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The bottom line is that, even after multiple moves toward University positions by GEO\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bargaining team, the University refuses to make any but the smallest movements towards our position. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear that if we want a contract that benefits all of our members equally, we have to be prepared to act now. It is absolutely crucial that all GEO members to attend the first March and Rally of the semester, on Thursday, October 11th, at 11am at Whitmore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Thursday, October 04, 2007, GEO met with the University once again, submitting a package proposal that contained the core issues most critical to our union, such as MOU6\/affirmative action, fee reductions, improved childcare, and the protection of our health benefits (go to www.geouaw.org to see GEO\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s complete proposal to the University). However, we showed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geouaw.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geouaw.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geouaw.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geouaw.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geouaw.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/geouaw.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geouaw.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geouaw.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geouaw.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}