Fellow workers,

Below please find a corrected and updated list of candidate statements for the GEO elections for the bargaining committee. Because one candidate was mistakenly left off of the initial list, we are extending voting by one day to ensure that members have the same amount of time to review statements and to make informed decisions. Therefore, the election will go live later today, and will conclude on August 9th at 4pm in a virtual meeting of the Elections 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.

Isaac 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

Nina Fernandes

Hello to all in GEO,

I’m Nina Fernandes, a 5th year PhD candidate in Epidemiology in the SPHHS. I’m running for the open position of Bargaining Committee Research and Proposal Coordinator.

I joined GEO immediately upon beginning my program in 2020. Frustration with the ubiquitous contract violations I’ve observed- workload abuse, misclassifications of assistantships as grad contract hourly positions, discrimination against protected classes of workers- pushed me to get actively involved in GEO over the last academic year. Since then, I’ve been elected as steward for my department, taken part in bargaining and mediation sessions, and joined several GEO committees and caucuses. In support of our bargaining team, I am actively working to launch a membership survey to inform contract negotiation strategy. I also serve as a district lead for the Contract Action Team(CAT) and am supporting several grad workers in bringing a grievance against their department. If elected, I will continue to fight for our members’ rights to a living wage and a workplace where we are valued as scholars, not just cheap labor.

As a member of the bargaining committee, my sole priority will be advancing the will of our membership. I pledge to expand rank-and-file power by applying universal design methods to make GEO information truly accessible. Furthermore, I will seek to further democratize GEO decision making according to the principles of non-hierarchical power sharing.

My experience teaching and working in science communication has given me the skills to promote the long-term health of our union and the values to prioritize the survival of UMass Amherst as an institution devoted to the public good. Through my training as a public health scientist, I’ve developed expertise in research methodology, data-driven policy analysis, and utilizing causal inference to understand the root causes of systemic social problems. Working in public health education and outreach has equipped me to communicate with people from myriad backgrounds about complex information and contentious issues. I am committed to providing the clear, concise, and consistent information dissemination that our members need to take active roles in decision making.

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In solidarity, GEO Leadership
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