Fellow workers,
On August 28th, nearly 60 GEO members met with UMass Amherst admin for another bargaining session. At this session, we received responses to the proposals in our package from the first bargaining session. Management’s bargaining team only responded to a few of our proposals, suggesting we defer bargaining over the others until we were able to discuss a full, 3-year successor contract instead of a one-year extension. Indeed, management only wanted to discuss financial proposals, meaning they completely disregarded our proposals regarding accessibility, discrimination, harassment, and the ability for masters’ students to hold assistantships.
Admin’s counters mainly focused on our proposals regarding wages and fee waivers. They proposed waiving 75% of the graduate service fee (up from 50% currently) and 75% of the engineering fee (deferring discussions of other fees to the next round of bargaining). This mention of the engineering fee is thanks to countless GEO members over the last several years across multiple cycles of bargaining who have showed up to testify to the discriminatory practice of charging this fee to one specific subset of the bargaining unit.
Management countered our proposal for a 15% wage increase, offering us instead an 8% increase in two 4% installments, one after ratification and one in February. They also responded to our $400/month housing stipend proposal by offering to establish a “graduate emergency assistance fund” that would seek to address the multiple, interlocking emergencies facing graduate students in the Pioneer Valley—with no details regarding how the fund would be administered.
Finally, in response to a proposal to increase contributions to the Health and Welfare Trust Fund from $17/FTE to $24/FTE—GEO’s attempt to address the fund’s current operation at a deficit—admin offered us an increase to $19/FTE.
Much of the session involved GEO asking questions about management’s proposals. We were told that the goal was to make UMass “competitive,” whereas GEO’s bargaining committee has focused on making UMass a place that grad students can literally afford to attend—which, presently, is not the case. While GEO spoke about rent burden and UMass’ role in the housing crisis, management recognized that they probably should “do better” but deferred until the next round of negotiations.
As of right now, nothing has been agreed upon or set in stone. Next, GEO will respond to admin’s proposals, and we will continue to negotiate until our members’ needs are met.
Want to get involved? Come to our next Bargaining Committee meeting on Thursday, September 7 from 9-11am! We’ll send a reminder with a Zoom link next week. Can’t make it? No worries! Reach out to the bargaining committee directly at bargaining to find out how to get plugged in.
In solidarity,
Your Bargaining Committee
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In solidarity, GEO Leadership
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