Fellow GEO members,

We are shocked and dismayed by the University’s decision to drop the campus-wide mask mandate, effective immediately. This change in policy was made abruptly: the announcement came less than 24 hours before its implementation. This time yesterday, all members of the campus community were required to wear a mask indoors, and it was strongly recommended that we either double-mask or use N95, KN95, or similarly robust face coverings. The reason for this was clear: the COVID-19 pandemic has not gone away. This is still true today. But now masks are essentially optional, except in a select few spaces on campus. UMass was doing the bare minimum to combat COVID before; now they are doing less than nothing.

Many GEO members have already expressed concern and outrage over UMass’s position that “individuals or departments cannot create mask requirements separate from or more restrictive than university requirements.” It goes without saying that GEO rejects the coercive intention of this statement. We firmly believe that all workers on this campus should have the ability to engage in their work safely, and that no worker should be put in a position that effectively eliminates their ability to take proactive steps toward that goal. You should not be forced to hold office hours with unmasked individuals; nor should you be forced to teach unmasked individuals. You should not be forced to work in labs, for hours at a time, with unmasked individuals.

The GEO contract is clear about this: “No graduate student employee, including an ARD whose living space is their workspace, shall be forced to work in a situation which presents a serious threat to their health or safety.” GEO has always maintained that Covid-19 presents a serious threat to our membership in more ways than one. There is the risk of serious symptoms from an initial infection, and then there are the debilitating effects of long Covid, which may range from depression and nonrestorative sleep to anxiety and breathing difficulties, among many other things—and which can last for years on end.

Up until this point, the combination of strict masking policies and a vaccination requirement allowed many GEO members to feel safer going about their work. Now, the University has altered that equation. And they have done so unilaterally: no notice, no input from us (or any of the other campus unions), and above all no intention of actually enforcing the remaining, and feeble, requirements for unvaccinated individuals to continue wearing masks indoors—meaning potentially in our offices, our classrooms, and our labs. This is one more example of how the university puts its own profit ahead of the needs of its workers and students. The masking requirement somewhat mitigated the risk of working alongside unvaccinated individuals, but now even that shred of safety has been effectively removed. Our members are being forced to work closely with unmasked and potentially unvaccinated individuals; and they are also being stopped from actively doing anything about it. This amounts to a violation of our collective bargaining agreement. Further, by making this decision in such a clandestine manner and so suddenly, while telling us publicly they had “no plan to drop the masking requirement imminently,” they have denied us the ability to discuss and plan for the consequences of this decision. We were given no chance to prepare our members (especially our most vulnerable still on campus) to be forced to work with potentially unvaccinated and unmasked individuals.

There are many of you that have been voicing your concerns over returning to in person work since the start of the pandemic, and many more of you that voiced the same concerns at the onset of the most recent variant. There are many of you who went through the bureaucratic hassle of seeking workplace accommodations, and others who were not considered under the narrowly defined conditions of said accommodations. And, significantly, there are many of you who based your return to work on the expectation of the mask mandate being universally applied, and the somewhat mitigating impact that had on safety concerns.

Now, absent the enforcement of the mask mandate (especially for unvaccinated individuals), we encourage all GEO members to invoke your contractual right to a safe working environment. GEO recommends that graduate workers who have legitimate concerns over the lifting of the mask mandate and the resulting risk to your safety follow the process outlined in our contract: “A graduate student employee who believes they have been assigned tasks that present a threat to their health or safety shall immediately inform their supervisor for an assessment of the situation.” During this assessment it is reasonable for you to ask that your face to face duties be transitioned online until we have a clearer understanding of how this risk to your safety will be dealt with. If needed, GEO will assist you directly with these conversations and will assertively support you in all aspects of this process. We also recommend that you file for a workplace accommodation immediately: https://www.umass.edu/disability/employees/employee-request-accomodations. If the University interferes with either of these processes let us know immediately, and we will discuss your options up to/including filing grievances.

If your supervisor does not respond or instructs you and your coworkers to continue working in unsafe conditions, let us know immediately! Write to your geo.

In closing we ask that members stand in solidarity with their fellow GEO members, and with the other campus unions. We recognize that many of you are less impacted by this change, but hope you will support and respect your fellow workers who are. We especially hope you stand in solidarity with RAPMU, also part of our local, as their members face this unilateral change directly as they work and live in the dorms. We have included other statements from campus unions in this email, and will send more as we receive them. We will also send prompt updates as things progress, and as you bring us your concerns.

GEO’s next general membership meeting will take place over Zoom on Tuesday, March 15 from 3-5p.m. You can register here. We will be holding added space to discuss the dropped mask requirements and our next steps for responding to this dangerous change of course.

In solidarity and safety,

GEO