This is a guide for you as a Steward or rank and file member to help you with getting in touch with your state legislator – representative or state Senator – about current demands and needs of grad students. You can tweak this to make it suit your personal experience, but here’s a script which includes all the important information and arguments to support your needs. We are already putting pressure on UMass to figure out a just distribution of available funds. UMass is the largest public university in Massachusetts, and the largest landlord in Amherst. Talking to our legislators can get us the attention and funds we really need, and make sure that as grad students we get our fair share of all allotted state and federal funds.

Summer is looking pretty rough without summer funding. Even if you’re ok yourself, you know that a lot of your fellow GEO workers are not going to be able to afford rent or food once we hit May 23rd when many of us will begin our “unemployed” summer.

We are already putting pressure on UMass administration to take the funds we know they have, and reallocate some to us, because we have needs that cannot be met by other means – most students can’t get unemployment benefits; for a lot of international students, there is no stimulus check either.

While we keep the pressure on UMass, we need to make a concerted effort to stay on the radar of state legislators who decide funding for UMass. The more they are engaged with our needs, the more likely we are to get more funds at the state level allocated to UMass, and make sure those funds actually come to us. This is the time to take action. You have the right to talk directly to the state-level legislator who represents you and your town. Yes, even international students have that right! Our livelihoods impact the communities we live in and legislators need to know.

Calling on all members to get in touch with your state representative! Rachel Bell and others on the geomembers Slack have come up with these scripts to help you get started! Other members have volunteered to text you the name and contact of the rep for your town. Keep your phones close and get ready to make some calls! If you don’t want to make a phone call, use the email template instead! If you want to find your representative now, you can use this link: https://malegislature.gov/search/findmylegislator

Long Version (for emails and letters)

Dear _________,

My name is ____, I’m a grad student working as a _____ (TA/RA, etc.) at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. I have lived in _______ (town), ___ (state), for __ years, and my kids go to school in ___ . I am contacting you as your constituent because I am frightened by the decisions that UMass Amherst has made since the outbreak of COVID-19 regarding us graduate workers.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Graduate Employee Organization (GEO-UAW) has been impact bargaining with university representatives to provide relief to graduate workers in this time of crisis. GEO provided four proposals to address the impact of the pandemic on GEO members: Summer Pay (bringing all graduate students up to 20 hour per week assistantships over the summer); Fall Job Security (maintain same level of graduate assistantship funding this coming academic year); Housing Security and rent waivers for North Village and Lincoln (halt the planned eviction and demolition of this University-owned graduate student housing during the pandemic); Vacation Payouts (compensation for the work done during spring break to transition to online learning).

The University refused to support any of these proposals. Many graduate workers will be without summer pay at a time when 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment and there are no external jobs to be had. Families and international students living in the University-owned North Village and Lincoln Apartments will be forced to leave their homes in the middle of a pandemic so that UMass Amherst can demolish these apartments. Graduate workers who had been planning on employment with the University in the fall semester may instead be faced with uncertainty, no funding, and the hard decision to leave their graduate programs. As of Friday April 24th, UMass Amherst has proposed a $300,000 hardship fund to support grad students. We must be clear about what this money is: it’s too little, and we can’t live on it. Imagine if each student who applied got $3,000 of that money – the very barest minimum needed for a single person to pay 3 months of rent, utilities, and food expenses. Many of us support others as well, who this will not cover: parent, child, partner. With $300,000, only 100 graduate students would get the minimum support necessary. 

UMass Amherst is set to receive $18 million as part of an initial windfall of federal relief funding, half of which is earmarked as a minimum for emergency student financial aid. Where is this money going? International students are facing a severe food crisis, rent and housing crisis, and funding crisis exacerbated by border closures, uncertainties around visa renewals, travel bans, and employment status. Most cannot avail of unemployment benefits, receive stimulus checks, or use any other safety net programs. UMass Amherst’s decisions have only added to the hardship and precarity graduate workers are facing at this time. As one of the largest employers in the area, their lack of support for graduate workers could have devastating consequences for the future of not just UMass Amherst but Amherst, Northampton, and surrounding communities, as hubs of learning, research, and community. 

I ask that you put pressure on the University of Massachusetts administration to provide relief for their graduate workers in the wake of COVID-19. I understand that the University may face budgetary challenges in the next year.

UMass works because we do. How can we work when we are hungry, jobless, and homeless?

Sincerely,
___________
Teaching Assistant / Research Assistant / etc.