Fellow workers,

Below please find candidate statements for the ongoing GEO elections for leadership and the bargaining committee. GEO members eligible to vote in this election will receive a voter ID and instructions later today via email; please keep an eye out for an email from ElectionRunner.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact the Elections Committee at elections.

in solidarity,
The GEO Elections Committee

Brett Belcastro

My name is Brett Belcastro and I am a master’s student in the Labor Studies program. I am running for the Bargaining Coordinator position because I see a need to secure a strong contract while also facing the realities of GEO’s prior organizing efforts. As we head into the Fall semester, I believe that we should carefully assess our actual strength at the department level and base our contract strategy on the state of the union. In doing so, I see a path for GEO to not only make significant gains, but to persist and grow into 2025 and beyond.

Since the beginning of our negotiations last August I have been active in the contract organizing campaign, making walkthroughs to talk with members and organize events for some of the largest departments on campus. As a lifelong resident of Western MA, the university’s impact on housing costs is not just about conditions during my degree—it is a lifelong struggle in which I have a personal stake. I believe that GEO is uniquely capable of protecting not just students but the wider five-college area from the university’s destructive and unaccountable practices.

My overriding concern on the committee will be to secure a contract that sets us up to organize in force through the coming years, delivering gains to attract new members and reignite our department-level efforts. With your help I believe we can accomplish this.

Issac Pliskin

Hello Fellow GEO Members,

My name is Isaac Pliskin, and I am entering my fourth year in the Physics PhD program. I am running for the position of Bargaining Research & Proposal Coordinator because I believe that GEO members deserve a contract that meets our needs and has not been imposed upon us by the university.

Throughout this bargaining campaign I have seen members belittled, ignored, mocked, and more for even suggesting alternatives to a housing stipend. While I loved the idea of a housing stipend when I first heard of it, it quickly became clear that the Bargaining Committee is more devoted to the idea of a housing stipend than actually addressing the needs of members. They have refused to consider other solutions that would help members and have a chance of being implemented by the university. Getting housing into the GEO contract has been a battle we have been fighting as far back as 1999, and we finally achieved a victory in seeing the university acknowledge this issue by proposing an emergency housing fund. While this fund, as proposed, is insufficient to address the current housing crisis, it opens the door for better solutions during future contract negotiations. Instead of recognizing this as the opportunity that it is and pushing to increase the amount of money contributed to the fund by the university, the Bargaining Committee has stubbornly clung to the housing stipend, and now started to chip away at the amount of money provided monthly by a housing stipend. This is a mistake. The more we chip away at the housing stipend the less money we will have left on the table to move to wages and a fund when we are forced to consider our other options.

There have been no union wide surveys, no town halls, and only two Bargaining Committee meetings devoted to proposals and bargaining directions since the end of April. This cannot continue if we hope to bargain and win a contract that will help membership.

If elected to this position, I commit to carrying out the responsibilities of this position including writing proposals, actively participating in mediation, communicating updates and, ultimately bargaining on the behalf of all members for the best contract possible. I will commit to being the loudest voice on the Bargaining Committee in advocating for membership input on the direction of our proposals. I know that it is difficult for members to attend meetings over the summer (and in general) so I will push for additional avenues for members to voice concerns, ideas, and desires for the remainder of the bargaining campaign. My ideas for this include drop-in times on Zoom or in the GEO office. These drop-in times would be more casual and conversational than a traditional meeting and centered around hearing from membership as much as possible.

I hope that you will give me the opportunity to fight for our contract by electing me to be the next member of the Bargaining Committee.

In solidarity,

Isaac Pliskin

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In solidarity, GEO Leadership
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