Extension of the current heath care plan which includes a clause that the University will cover 20% cost increase to current benefits, plus 90% of all cost increase above the 20%.
Also regarding the health care plan, the University will contribute towards raising the annual cap in health care benefits by giving $250,000 this year and another $250,000 the following year. This should be enough to raise the cap from its current level of $100,000 to $500,000 next year (08-09) and $1,000,000 the year after (09-10), which will allow GTFs to qualify for FHIAP.
In addition to the current plan, the University will increase their contribution to GTFs with dependents by $100, by lowering the per-term premium for dependents from $165 to $65.
8% raise to the minimum salary over two years, 4% this year and 4% the year after next.
$56 reduction in fees per-term, reducing the costs to GTFs from $206 per-term to $150 per-term.
The extension of the tuition waiver to GTFs who take an “intersession” course.
The University agreed to cover the matriculation fee assessed to all new GTFs in the fall who have a GTF assignment.
Two weeks of paid vacation for GTFs with at least a 9 month research position.
The ability of GTFs to request a reassignment for positions in which they don’t feel safe.
Increased access to supplies, computers, private meeting space, and office space for GTFs.
The GTFF will be allowed to make a presentation at the annual Provost's Retreat for Department Heads.
The administrator in charge of hearing Step 3 grievances will have to have experience handling labor/management disputes.
STRIKE FAQ
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
Contract Agreement Reached
The bargaining team today is pleased to announce that we have reached a tentative agreement with the University on a two year contact. I think it is safe to say the current agreement represents the best contract in GTFF history. Below is a list of the big highlights from the settlement. All full members will be receiving ballots over the next couple to weeks to vote on the proposed changes that would take effect in September 2008.
· Extension of the current heath care plan which includes a clause that the University will cover 20% cost increase to current benefits, plus 90% of all cost increase above the 20%.
· Also regarding the health care plan, the University will contribute towards raising the annual cap in health care benefits by giving $250,000 this year and another $250,000 the following year. This should be enough to raise the cap from its current level of $100,000 to $500,000 next year (08-09) and $1,000,000 the year after (09-10), which will allow GTFs to qualify for FHIAP.
· In addition to the current plan, the University will increase their contribution to GTFs with dependents by $100, by lowering the per-term premium for dependents from $165 to $65. This reduction in costs to the GTF is in part to offset childcare costs.
· 8% raise to the minimum salary over two years, 4% this year and 4% the year after next.
· $56 reduction in fees per-term, reducing the costs to GTFs from $206 per-term to $150 per-term.
· The extension of the tuition waiver to GTFs who take an “intersession” course.
· The University agreed to cover the matriculation fee assessed to all new GTFs in the fall who have a GTF assignment. Currently new fall GTFs to the University pay a $250 onetime fee. This contract would mark the end of GTFs paying this fee.
· Two weeks of paid vacation for GTFs with at least a 9 month research position.
· The ability of GTFs to request a reassignment for positions in which they don’t feel safe.
· Increased access to supplies, computers, private meeting space, and office space for GTFs.
· Additional benefits will be described later.
The bargaining team is extremely happy with the progress that has been made and we are excited by the current proposal. Thank you for all of you support, only when we stood in solidarity were we able to reach such a momentous agreement. The current proposal includes benefit improvements that many of our member needed, including a significant reduction in fees, decent increases in the minimum salary and maybe most important a raise in the annual health care cap, a benefit that many of our members have unfortunately demonstrated the need for. With this raise in the annual cap, GTFs will have added protection from and unpredictable catastrophic events that often leads to significant financial and other hardships.
In Respectful Solidarity,
Mark Leymon, President GTFF
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
STRIKE FAQ
Q: Are we going out on strike?
A: No. Not this term. Not without several votes. Not until September at the very earliest and not feasibly until December.
Q: Why are the bargaining team and the GTFF talking about a strike now? Isn't it premature?
A: The bargaining team is not talking about a strike now. The bargaining team is discussing what would happen if a strike became necessary. The bargaining team is reacting to the UO's stated position that their proposals are not going to get any better and could get worse. When thinking about the bargaining process, the team realized that a strike could be a possibility a long way down the road, but that the bylaws, as currently written, are a major obstacle to even exploring that option.
We hope that if the GTFF did hold a strike vote, this would demonstrate to the UO that GTFs are serious about what they need to get at the bargaining table and the UO would be more reasonable in their proposals.
Q: Why even worry about the bylaws now, if a potential strike is so far off?
There is an officer election going on now. When the GTFF holds an election, it costs about $800 in postage and supplies, so it makes sense to do the two votes at the same time. Plus, the bylaws election is a way to gage the how strongly the membership feels about these issues. The bargaining team does not want to be out ahead of the membership when it comes to our position at the table.
Q: If the GTFF goes out on strike will I lose my tuition waiver, health care, and pay?
A: It is extremely unlikely. We do not want to make absolute promises about what might happen nine months from now, but when other graduate employee unions have gone out on strike, they have not lost their benefits.
It is not likely that the GTFF would ever engage in an indefinite strike. This is not a really practical way for graduate employees to demonstrate that the university needs their labor. Grad unions typically go out on strike for two days to a week, or go out on strike during finals, when their labor is needed most. These short, high-impact strikes have the benefits of a longer strike, without the drawbacks that GTFs fear.
Long-term strikes attempt to cost the employer more money than would be spent by meeting the workers' demands. This is not really practical in a university setting. Instead, our goal would be to disrupt the placid routine of the university, leveraging how much professors and students rely on GTFs to get them to put pressure on the university. Additionally, universities as a rule, and the UO in particular, hate negative publicity. This is a tool we would use.
Moreover, the university is not a centralized system. If you didn't go into work tomorrow, say you were sick, your professor might know, but the UO administration is not keeping tabs and they have no way of doing so. All this is by way of saying that if went out on strike for a week, the UO would have no way of knowing who went out and who did not, and no real way of punishing you for it. Not to say that this is a promise that it could never happen, but the UO would have to rely on individual professors and departments to report on their GTFs and this is not likely to happen.
Q: Isn't the bargaining team taking talk of a strike lightly?
A: No. Simply no. We recognize what a strike would mean. Even a short one. We are members just like you. We have families, mortgages, rent, car payments, dogs, and daughters. In short, lives. We have papers to grade, projects to finish, experiments to conduct, research to do. In short, jobs. In our spare time, we are also students.
We harbor no fantasies of revolution. We don't want to storm any barricades. We were charged with the job of getting GTFs what they need to live their lives. We were given priorities by the membership. We simply feel that the threat of a strike, a successful strike vote, and, ultimately, a member-approved strike are all tools that we could use to get those things. Higher wages, lower fees, adequate health care.
As the bylaws stand now, those tools are taken out of our hands. That is why were are starting a long conversation with a call to revise the bylaws.
Q: Can the leadership or the bargaining team just call a strike at any time?
A: No. Any strike would have to be called for by the membership. We are a very proud member-run union. The proposed bylaws changes would make a strike vote more plausible, but still hundreds of GTFs would have to vote to authorize a strike.
Also, even if hundreds of GTFs vote to authorize a strike, the Executive Board of the GTFF would still have to vote to do it. If the Board felt support was weak, even if they had legal authorization, they probably would choose not to call the strike. A strike no one honors is the worst possible outcome.
The state of Oregon also has many laws that regulate how and when a public employee union can strike. The two parities have to bargain for 150 days before either side can declare "impasse." Then there is a period of mediation. If mediation fails, there is a 30-day cooling off period. Only then could a public employee union strike. And, at the GTFF, only after the membership vote to authorize it and the Executive Board calls for it.
Lastly, it would never be in the interest of the GTFF to hold a stealth strike. Not only does a union need member support, but the threat of a strike is a tool at the table and we would be talking very loudly if we were in a position when a strike was imminent.
Q: What is the process for going out on strike, should it become necessary?
A: Assuming the bylaws changes pass:
1. The bargaining team would have to believe that negotiations were at a standstill.
2. The Executive Board would have to agree and call for a strike authorization vote.
3. The Executive Council would have to agree and call for a strike authorization vote.
4. The membership would have to vote. At least 30% of the bargaining unit would have to cast ballots, with 55% voting 'yes.'
5. The Executive Board would have to vote to actually call the strike, but could only do so legally after all state laws are complied with. The Executive Board would have to weigh the number of votes cast, the strength of people's passion about the issues, the impact a strike would have, and whether they thought a strike would positively impact bargaining, which is the goal.
If the bylaws changes do not pass, then a strike authorization vote is highly unlikely.
Q: Has the GTFF ever gone out on strike?
A: No. The GTFF has never gone out on strike. In fact, the last time we can find evidence of a GTFF strike vote was 1977.
Q: Is threatening to go out on strike a tactic the GTFF uses all the time?
A: No. The bargaining team asked the E-Council to call for a strike vote in 2004, but the UO and the GTFF settled before there was much discussion of how a strike or strike vote would work. Other than that, 1977 is our best info on when the GTFF talked about striking.
Q: Aren't there other things we could do besides striking?
A: Yes. The bargaining team and the GTFF leadership will be exploring many ways to put pressure on the UO without resorting to a strike. Maybe it can't be said enough, no one wants to go out on strike. We will engage in a variety of actions and activities before any strike, or even before a strike vote is taken.
We find ourselves in the position of having to put pressure on the UO to get them to improve their proposals, so we will explore many avenues of pressure throughout the coming months.
Some things other grad unions have done:
1. Grade Strike: Withholding grades at the end of a term by even one day past the deadline demonstrates to the university how much they would lose if the grades were held permanently.
2. 'A' Strike: The idea here is to give all your students an 'A' for the term. The students are happy, you, technically, did your job, and the university, again, sees exactly how much they rely on GTFs to do a professional job, despite non-professional wages.
3. Informational Picket: Pretty self-explanatory. GTFs would walk picket lines and pass out info encouraging students, faculty, and classified staff to contact the administration and encourage them to work with the union to strike an acceptable deal.
4. 'Blue' Flu: Named for the police, but appropriate for our union, this would be an action where everyone called in sick one day.
5: Empty Campus Day: We did this in 2004. We encouraged all of our summer GTFs to teach their classes off campus. It caused a certain amount of disruption at the university and they settled with us the next day.
6: 'Credit' Strike: We threatened to do this in 2000. The state pays the university by the number of credit hours students sign up for. Most departments on campus encourage GTFs to sign up for a full load of 16 credits. GTFs are only required to sign up for 9 credits. The university would stand to lose a significant sum of money if GTFs only signed up for the required none credits. This action is tough though, because once the money is lost, there is no getting it back. Departments suffer as well, and we want to keep the profs on our side.
There are a number of tactics we will discuss and explore. A strike is a last resort option. It would only happen after other things have been tried. Moreover, we sincerely hope that the threat of a strike would be enough to help the UO see that compromising with the GTFF is in their interest.
Q: Are there compromises at the table that could be made that would make a strike unnecessary?
A: There very likely are several avenues of compromise that can be explored. The GTFF bargaining team has tried to make it clear to the UO that we want to explore these options. At this time, the last word from the UO is that they are unwilling to explore compromises.
Q: Isn't a million dollar annual cap really high, couldn't it be something less?
A: The bargaining team is fighting for the $1 million cap so that GTFs will qualify for state assistance for dependent payments through the Family Health Insurance Assistance Program (FHIAP). Unfortunately, FHIAP requires that insurance plans have a $1 million cap before people can qualify. Settling for less than $1 million would put much needed assistance out of reach for hundreds of GTFs.
As it is, we have only asked to increase the annual cap to $500,000 next year. The UO said no to this proposal.
Also, the difference that PacificSource would charge for a $250,000 annual cap is not that much different than for a $500,000 annual cap.
Lastly, the UO flat out said 'no' to our proposal. They did not explore ways to increase the annual cap at all. The rejected the idea and indicated that they were not willing to compromise.
Q: As teachers, don't we have an obligation to our students and doesn't that obligation outweigh any consideration of benefits?
A: Everyone takes their obligation to students seriously. If, however, we let that obligation outweigh all others, then the university really has us in a pickle. We will have to accept whatever they put on the table, no matter how poor it is. It is also important to ask what obligation the university has to its workers. As it stands now, GTFs earn sub-poverty wages, pay back 6% of their salaries in fees, and increasingly face the possibility of financial ruin if something dreadful should happen to them medically.
Each GTFF member would have to weigh their obligation to their students, their professor, their research, their department against their obligations to themselves, their colleagues, their fellow workers, and future generations of GTFs.
There are no easy answers. There are possibly no 'right' answers. That's why we have votes and that's why we take these issues seriously.
Q: Could international students get in trouble for striking?
A: No. Strikes are legal in Oregon. The GTFF will only conduct a legal strike, if the membership votes to authorize one. We, do, however, recognize that international students have particular concerns and will seek to address them as challenges arise.
Q: Will research assistants have to abandon their research and experiments if the union goes on strike?
A: Again, we can't know what might happen months from now, but the leadership recognizes that research GTFs are often working on their own dissertation materials and would have extra incentives to not abandon that work.
Other grad unions that have faced these issues have issued "campus passes" in exchange for volunteering for picket duty or other vital work. The GTFF would probably attempt to arrange a similar system.
Q: Would there be some sort of strike pay?
A: Hopefully a long strike would not be necessary, as it is not practical, so no one would have to worry about lost pay, but it not really feasible for the GTFF to promise any sort of strike pay. We don't have the resources.
A: No. Not this term. Not without several votes. Not until September at the very earliest and not feasibly until December.
Q: Why are the bargaining team and the GTFF talking about a strike now? Isn't it premature?
A: The bargaining team is not talking about a strike now. The bargaining team is discussing what would happen if a strike became necessary. The bargaining team is reacting to the UO's stated position that their proposals are not going to get any better and could get worse. When thinking about the bargaining process, the team realized that a strike could be a possibility a long way down the road, but that the bylaws, as currently written, are a major obstacle to even exploring that option.
We hope that if the GTFF did hold a strike vote, this would demonstrate to the UO that GTFs are serious about what they need to get at the bargaining table and the UO would be more reasonable in their proposals.
Q: Why even worry about the bylaws now, if a potential strike is so far off?
There is an officer election going on now. When the GTFF holds an election, it costs about $800 in postage and supplies, so it makes sense to do the two votes at the same time. Plus, the bylaws election is a way to gage the how strongly the membership feels about these issues. The bargaining team does not want to be out ahead of the membership when it comes to our position at the table.
Q: If the GTFF goes out on strike will I lose my tuition waiver, health care, and pay?
A: It is extremely unlikely. We do not want to make absolute promises about what might happen nine months from now, but when other graduate employee unions have gone out on strike, they have not lost their benefits.
It is not likely that the GTFF would ever engage in an indefinite strike. This is not a really practical way for graduate employees to demonstrate that the university needs their labor. Grad unions typically go out on strike for two days to a week, or go out on strike during finals, when their labor is needed most. These short, high-impact strikes have the benefits of a longer strike, without the drawbacks that GTFs fear.
Long-term strikes attempt to cost the employer more money than would be spent by meeting the workers' demands. This is not really practical in a university setting. Instead, our goal would be to disrupt the placid routine of the university, leveraging how much professors and students rely on GTFs to get them to put pressure on the university. Additionally, universities as a rule, and the UO in particular, hate negative publicity. This is a tool we would use.
Moreover, the university is not a centralized system. If you didn't go into work tomorrow, say you were sick, your professor might know, but the UO administration is not keeping tabs and they have no way of doing so. All this is by way of saying that if went out on strike for a week, the UO would have no way of knowing who went out and who did not, and no real way of punishing you for it. Not to say that this is a promise that it could never happen, but the UO would have to rely on individual professors and departments to report on their GTFs and this is not likely to happen.
Q: Isn't the bargaining team taking talk of a strike lightly?
A: No. Simply no. We recognize what a strike would mean. Even a short one. We are members just like you. We have families, mortgages, rent, car payments, dogs, and daughters. In short, lives. We have papers to grade, projects to finish, experiments to conduct, research to do. In short, jobs. In our spare time, we are also students.
We harbor no fantasies of revolution. We don't want to storm any barricades. We were charged with the job of getting GTFs what they need to live their lives. We were given priorities by the membership. We simply feel that the threat of a strike, a successful strike vote, and, ultimately, a member-approved strike are all tools that we could use to get those things. Higher wages, lower fees, adequate health care.
As the bylaws stand now, those tools are taken out of our hands. That is why were are starting a long conversation with a call to revise the bylaws.
Q: Can the leadership or the bargaining team just call a strike at any time?
A: No. Any strike would have to be called for by the membership. We are a very proud member-run union. The proposed bylaws changes would make a strike vote more plausible, but still hundreds of GTFs would have to vote to authorize a strike.
Also, even if hundreds of GTFs vote to authorize a strike, the Executive Board of the GTFF would still have to vote to do it. If the Board felt support was weak, even if they had legal authorization, they probably would choose not to call the strike. A strike no one honors is the worst possible outcome.
The state of Oregon also has many laws that regulate how and when a public employee union can strike. The two parities have to bargain for 150 days before either side can declare "impasse." Then there is a period of mediation. If mediation fails, there is a 30-day cooling off period. Only then could a public employee union strike. And, at the GTFF, only after the membership vote to authorize it and the Executive Board calls for it.
Lastly, it would never be in the interest of the GTFF to hold a stealth strike. Not only does a union need member support, but the threat of a strike is a tool at the table and we would be talking very loudly if we were in a position when a strike was imminent.
Q: What is the process for going out on strike, should it become necessary?
A: Assuming the bylaws changes pass:
1. The bargaining team would have to believe that negotiations were at a standstill.
2. The Executive Board would have to agree and call for a strike authorization vote.
3. The Executive Council would have to agree and call for a strike authorization vote.
4. The membership would have to vote. At least 30% of the bargaining unit would have to cast ballots, with 55% voting 'yes.'
5. The Executive Board would have to vote to actually call the strike, but could only do so legally after all state laws are complied with. The Executive Board would have to weigh the number of votes cast, the strength of people's passion about the issues, the impact a strike would have, and whether they thought a strike would positively impact bargaining, which is the goal.
If the bylaws changes do not pass, then a strike authorization vote is highly unlikely.
Q: Has the GTFF ever gone out on strike?
A: No. The GTFF has never gone out on strike. In fact, the last time we can find evidence of a GTFF strike vote was 1977.
Q: Is threatening to go out on strike a tactic the GTFF uses all the time?
A: No. The bargaining team asked the E-Council to call for a strike vote in 2004, but the UO and the GTFF settled before there was much discussion of how a strike or strike vote would work. Other than that, 1977 is our best info on when the GTFF talked about striking.
Q: Aren't there other things we could do besides striking?
A: Yes. The bargaining team and the GTFF leadership will be exploring many ways to put pressure on the UO without resorting to a strike. Maybe it can't be said enough, no one wants to go out on strike. We will engage in a variety of actions and activities before any strike, or even before a strike vote is taken.
We find ourselves in the position of having to put pressure on the UO to get them to improve their proposals, so we will explore many avenues of pressure throughout the coming months.
Some things other grad unions have done:
1. Grade Strike: Withholding grades at the end of a term by even one day past the deadline demonstrates to the university how much they would lose if the grades were held permanently.
2. 'A' Strike: The idea here is to give all your students an 'A' for the term. The students are happy, you, technically, did your job, and the university, again, sees exactly how much they rely on GTFs to do a professional job, despite non-professional wages.
3. Informational Picket: Pretty self-explanatory. GTFs would walk picket lines and pass out info encouraging students, faculty, and classified staff to contact the administration and encourage them to work with the union to strike an acceptable deal.
4. 'Blue' Flu: Named for the police, but appropriate for our union, this would be an action where everyone called in sick one day.
5: Empty Campus Day: We did this in 2004. We encouraged all of our summer GTFs to teach their classes off campus. It caused a certain amount of disruption at the university and they settled with us the next day.
6: 'Credit' Strike: We threatened to do this in 2000. The state pays the university by the number of credit hours students sign up for. Most departments on campus encourage GTFs to sign up for a full load of 16 credits. GTFs are only required to sign up for 9 credits. The university would stand to lose a significant sum of money if GTFs only signed up for the required none credits. This action is tough though, because once the money is lost, there is no getting it back. Departments suffer as well, and we want to keep the profs on our side.
There are a number of tactics we will discuss and explore. A strike is a last resort option. It would only happen after other things have been tried. Moreover, we sincerely hope that the threat of a strike would be enough to help the UO see that compromising with the GTFF is in their interest.
Q: Are there compromises at the table that could be made that would make a strike unnecessary?
A: There very likely are several avenues of compromise that can be explored. The GTFF bargaining team has tried to make it clear to the UO that we want to explore these options. At this time, the last word from the UO is that they are unwilling to explore compromises.
Q: Isn't a million dollar annual cap really high, couldn't it be something less?
A: The bargaining team is fighting for the $1 million cap so that GTFs will qualify for state assistance for dependent payments through the Family Health Insurance Assistance Program (FHIAP). Unfortunately, FHIAP requires that insurance plans have a $1 million cap before people can qualify. Settling for less than $1 million would put much needed assistance out of reach for hundreds of GTFs.
As it is, we have only asked to increase the annual cap to $500,000 next year. The UO said no to this proposal.
Also, the difference that PacificSource would charge for a $250,000 annual cap is not that much different than for a $500,000 annual cap.
Lastly, the UO flat out said 'no' to our proposal. They did not explore ways to increase the annual cap at all. The rejected the idea and indicated that they were not willing to compromise.
Q: As teachers, don't we have an obligation to our students and doesn't that obligation outweigh any consideration of benefits?
A: Everyone takes their obligation to students seriously. If, however, we let that obligation outweigh all others, then the university really has us in a pickle. We will have to accept whatever they put on the table, no matter how poor it is. It is also important to ask what obligation the university has to its workers. As it stands now, GTFs earn sub-poverty wages, pay back 6% of their salaries in fees, and increasingly face the possibility of financial ruin if something dreadful should happen to them medically.
Each GTFF member would have to weigh their obligation to their students, their professor, their research, their department against their obligations to themselves, their colleagues, their fellow workers, and future generations of GTFs.
There are no easy answers. There are possibly no 'right' answers. That's why we have votes and that's why we take these issues seriously.
Q: Could international students get in trouble for striking?
A: No. Strikes are legal in Oregon. The GTFF will only conduct a legal strike, if the membership votes to authorize one. We, do, however, recognize that international students have particular concerns and will seek to address them as challenges arise.
Q: Will research assistants have to abandon their research and experiments if the union goes on strike?
A: Again, we can't know what might happen months from now, but the leadership recognizes that research GTFs are often working on their own dissertation materials and would have extra incentives to not abandon that work.
Other grad unions that have faced these issues have issued "campus passes" in exchange for volunteering for picket duty or other vital work. The GTFF would probably attempt to arrange a similar system.
Q: Would there be some sort of strike pay?
A: Hopefully a long strike would not be necessary, as it is not practical, so no one would have to worry about lost pay, but it not really feasible for the GTFF to promise any sort of strike pay. We don't have the resources.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
The Work Starts Now
At the General Membership Meeting last night, over 100 members of the GTFF voted to send an important proposed bylaws change to the full membership for a vote. Our current bylaws make it practically impossible for the GTFF to hold a strike authorization vote. The regulations require a 65% quorum on an authorization vote. The extremely high quorum would essentially mean that a strike authorization would need a 65% 'YES' vote in order to pass, as unions never assume any kind of 'NO' vote turning out. The high quorum may have made sense when the GTFF had 400 full members, but we now have close to 1000 and getting 650 GTFs to vote at all would be a herculean task.
Even if the proposed changes go through, however, there will be a lot of work ahead of us. First, we do need to get those changes made. The bylaws vote will serve to test our ability to turn out hundreds of votes. We need to get at least the same quorum we would need on a strike vote. This is will probably be the biggest test for the GTFF in my time there.
Of course, none of this would be necessary if the UO hadn't essentially declared themselves done bargaining. At least, they declared themselves done putting more money on the table. Just to review, the UO has put enough money on the table to raise the minimum wage by 4% each of the next two years OR reduce fees by $90 per term (with no cap on future increases) OR raise the annual cap on health insurance.
The bargaining team finds the UO's proposals unacceptable. GTFs deserve all three and more. We understand that it might not be possible to get everything, but that GTFs cannot settle for this little.
The UO is betting that GTFs are willing to settle for very little, rather than doing the work that it necessary to show them that this is unacceptable. They are banking on the fact that you are busy, that grad school is hard enough, and that, in the end, we are not a union, but just grad students who will take whatever they are offered and be grateful for it.
Even if the proposed changes go through, however, there will be a lot of work ahead of us. First, we do need to get those changes made. The bylaws vote will serve to test our ability to turn out hundreds of votes. We need to get at least the same quorum we would need on a strike vote. This is will probably be the biggest test for the GTFF in my time there.
Of course, none of this would be necessary if the UO hadn't essentially declared themselves done bargaining. At least, they declared themselves done putting more money on the table. Just to review, the UO has put enough money on the table to raise the minimum wage by 4% each of the next two years OR reduce fees by $90 per term (with no cap on future increases) OR raise the annual cap on health insurance.
The bargaining team finds the UO's proposals unacceptable. GTFs deserve all three and more. We understand that it might not be possible to get everything, but that GTFs cannot settle for this little.
The UO is betting that GTFs are willing to settle for very little, rather than doing the work that it necessary to show them that this is unacceptable. They are banking on the fact that you are busy, that grad school is hard enough, and that, in the end, we are not a union, but just grad students who will take whatever they are offered and be grateful for it.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
The Statement Not Given
The following the text of a speech/statement that was written for our last bargaining session with the UO (Monday, 3/17/08). The team debated whether or not to make this statement. Some felt it could come off as childish and/or whiny. Others felt that it made a powerful statement and could get the membership fired up. In the end, Dean Linton preempted any statement by opening the session telling us that the UO had put all the money it was going to on the table already and nothing we had to say was going to change that. So we didn't give any statement at all, but instead made it clear (hopefully) to the UO that their proposals were unacceptable and the GTFF felt compelled to move on to the "action" phase of bargaining.
So here is the statement that we didn't deliver to the UO. While the team did debate whether or not to give it in bargaining, I think it is a decently fair representation of the frustrations that team, and many members, feel about bargaining so far.
So here is the statement that we didn't deliver to the UO. While the team did debate whether or not to give it in bargaining, I think it is a decently fair representation of the frustrations that team, and many members, feel about bargaining so far.
Looking at your proposals from Friday made one thing very clear. You just don’t think that GTFs are important.
You say that GTFs are unimportant when you offer wages that would keep GTFs below the poverty line. When those wages are below average with our comparators.
You let us know that you think GTFs are unimportant when you ignore all of our presentations on fees. You have not responded to a single one of our arguments about fees. GTFs returning 6 to 26 percent of their pay to the university? Unimportant. Half of GTFs seeing a reduction in real income? Unimportant. GTFs paying different rates of fees than undergrads? Unimportant. This bargaining team telling you that fee elimination was our top priority? Unimportant.
We brought you the issue of timely pay. As far as we can tell, GTFs are the only group of employees on this campus that routinely get paid late. We all know why. We’re unimportant. Our paperwork gets shuffled to the bottom of the stack. If it was important to the UO that GTFs get paid on time, you’d do it. Instead you proposed a committee to look into the situation and make non-binding “recommendations.” We’ve seen the university's non-binding recommendations in action and we want no part of it. Not that we were important enough to be invited to be on the committee mind you. In all honesty, we hope your committee works out. We hope that GTFs all get paid on time next Fall. And this way you can avoid paying the late remedy penalty of $100 to any GTF and everyone will be happy. We understand that we are not important enough to actually have a seat at the table, but we have no interest in legitimizing that process by pretending a Q&A session is going to make anything better.
On the subject of vacation, I don’t know if you exactly think research GTFs are unimportant, but you certainly showed that you think this bargaining team is stupid. The first time you responded to our vacation proposal you tried the phrase “shall have the opportunity to be granted up to 10 days of vacation.” The second time you responded you tried “shall be allowed up to 10 days.” Allowed implies permission. Permission that can be granted or not granted, depending on whim.
Of course, nothing demonstrates how little you care for the lives of your GTFs than your rejection of our proposal to increase the annual cap on health insurance. We are sickened that the University can be cold to its employees. We are stunned that your proposal could allow the same thing that happened to Stephano to happen to any other GTF. We know it will happen. Apparently the UO is fine with the proposition that a certain number of GTF’s lives will be destroyed by its out-moded health care plan, but, like Stephano, that’s apparently unimportant and easily ignored.
We understand that if we could throw long passes, hit a three point jumpers, break records on the track, or play baseball that someone at this university would find a way to get us what we need, but we don’t. No one lines up to watch us work. We don’t pack ‘em in. We do however, work 30% of the instructional FTE on this campus. We lead your discussion sections. We lead your labs. We grade your papers. We hold office hours. We respond to e-mails. We teach the first term freshman what a thesis statement is. We stay over night in the lab monitor experiments. We do all the academic shit work on this campus that you are too good to do. We believe that this university cannot function without us.
To accept your proposals would be to agree with you that we are unimportant. We reject that proposition and we reject your proposals.
Here are our proposals exactly as you saw them last time. We want to make progress on the contract. We are desperate to make progress. But we cannot make progress that would hurt us in the long run. Unfortunately, accepting the proposition that we should be earning less than our comparators is not progress. Accepting an elimination of the cap on fees is not progress. Accepting continually stagnant benefits is not progress. Accepting that health care cannot be updated is not progress. And accepting that 8% of the cost of health care is all the benefits that GTFs should expect, is the exact opposite of progress.
If you honestly feel that we are unimportant and you can live without our labor on this campus, I guess we’ll find out. I hope this is not the case and that your proposals will look much better the next time we meet.
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