Dear members,

Happy New Year! We hope you all had a good and restful holiday. Our main goals in the next couple of weeks are to focus on the current state of impact bargaining and develop plans to talk to all of you about upcoming successor bargaining. We are also looking forward to welcoming new grad student workers in the Spring and having an orientation and membership drive with them. We are saying goodbye to Ian Busher this week, our very capable colleague and friend who has completed a year on the Bargaining Committee and moving on to other things.

UMass Unions United Organizing Workshop by Barbara Madeloni TODAY at NOON and more repeat sessions

To get back into gear after a 3 week break and are going to be attending this workshop Organizing for the Common Good which has been set up by a bunch of UMass Unions and is going to be run by the very capable Barbara Madeloni of LaborNotes. We know it’s short notice for today, but this workshop had a repeat session as well! Hope you can attend!

Registration: [Here], Facebook Event [Here]

Upcoming Impact Bargaining Session THIS THURSDAY

Time: January 14, 2021, 3-5

Link: https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/j/95441163764

Recap from the last Impact bargaining session

• We talked about concerns regarding reports from grad workers about jobs being cut, especially reflected in advanced (post-guaranteed-funding) stage people losing TA-ships. This continues to be a concern on our part and not really acknowledged by Admin. An information request is under way so that we can see if there have been big cuts to our jobs

• Admin is prepared to give us the $60,000 fund we asked for to provide extra childcare support and reimburse certain needs of software and infrastructure that our members have incurred due to working remotely – however this is contingent on us dropping a number of other demands

• We have already dropped the (admittedly ambitious) hazard pay proposal as there was not much member-push for a big ask like that

• In terms of health and safety and air quality we have no real information beyond what the UMass PR machine produces

• There are a bunch of issues specific to ResLife (residential workers) that are yet to be worked out – furloughs and holiday season have put the brakes on this but we will be resuming those discussions now

UMass Unions United: Letter to the Chancellor

We’ve been meeting with other unions across UMass campus and starting to listen in more to conversations and joint campaigns run by MTA, USA, PSU, and MSP. Please read this letter they are planning to circulate among their members and eventually send to the Chancellor, and you can sign on in solidarity too. We hope to have much more solidarity work in Spring 2021 and build union power together with other workers. Highlights:

With a projected $28 million coming from the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, we now have the funds to fully erase the projected campus deficit of $11 million for Fiscal Year 2021, and provide a comfortable surplus…
…the UMass system has been holding back $125 million in emergency funds and $323 million in unrestricted endowment funds—we are telling you that we need you to Bring Staff Back, end all attempts to subject any UMass worker to further cuts or furlough…

We delivered our petition to the Chancellor: Remote Work is Safe Work

On December 22nd we sent a little holiday cheer to the Chancellor with a petition signed by over 400 GEO members (attached).

Season’s Greetings, Chancellor Subbaswamy.

We hope that you’re staying safe and warm this holiday season. We think TAs, TOs, RAs, ARDs, and all GEO workers have been reallllllly good. We’ve gone to great lengths to make sure that UMass has been able to stay open and continue to “be revolutionary.” That’s why we’re asking you to commit to SAFE WORK at UMass in the spring semester with the attached petition. After all, UMass works because we do!

With respect and holiday cheer,

GEO-UAW 2322

In Solidarity,
Dora and Jyoti, GEO Co Chairs

GradWorkersDemandSafeWork.pdf