Hello fellow workers!
We hope everything has been going well for you this summer. This email contains important information regarding tuition waivers, etc. etc. Read on to find out more about what’s going on in GEO and how you can get further involved!
-
Tuition Waivers
We’ve received quite a lot of emails from fellow graduate workers about receiving an email from the bursar’s office that is informing us that our Fall 2023 bill has been issued. While GEO waivers are usually applied closer to the start of the semester, there have been a number of infrastructural and systemic problems from the University’s end. These problems have been causing a lot of delays in processing member information. In the meantime, we recommend that you should not pay any bills until we have a clear timeline from the University about when things will be sorted out.
Moreover, please let us know immediately if there are any issues in processing your health insurance.
-
Chancellor Reyes Refuses to Meet with GEO
On July 28th, we sent an email to Chancellor Reyes welcoming him to UMass and asking to meet with him about his vision for UMass as a public institution and to talk about the pressing issues facing graduate workers. However, we just received notice from the Office of the Chancellor saying that Chancellor Reyes would only meet with GSS leadership as “the elected representatives of the graduate student body.”
It is clear to us that Chancellor Reyes sees GSS as the only elected representative of the graduate student body and refuses to take us seriously as workers. The unnecessary and active exclusion of GEO is a clear message from Chancellor Reyes.
Chancellor Reyes should meet with GEO considering our union has been at the forefront of advocating for all graduate students and improving UMass for everyone. While we appreciate GSS’s role in helping represent graduate students and we closely collaborate with them, we want to make it clear that GEO also subscribes to this role and our union serves as a vehicle to directly address graduate workers as workers. The administration should recognize that they cannot circumvent our power as an organization.
– In solidarity
GEO Leadership
-
Save the Date! Summer Bargaining Session
Our next bargaining session will be on August 28th from 1-4pm at Campus Center Room 903. If you missed the last bargaining session, you can watch this 4-minute video to hear bargaining coordinator Danielle Bradley explain what happened, what GEO proposed, and what to expect from the administration at this upcoming session. Sign-up here to attend the next bargaining session!
____________
Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube!
Please email geo if there is anything you’d like to include in our weekly newsletters!
—
In solidarity, GEO Leadership
Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
