So we bargained last Friday and have sessions this Friday and next Tuesday. I have been sick as a dog since last Thursday, so haven't had much time or energy for posting. But here goes.
Last Friday: The UO responded to non-economic proposals. I must admit, we were expecting to hear the word "No" a lot more than we actually did. While the UO certainly wasn't saying "Yes" either, they were saying that they could accept a lot of our ideas, but didn't like our language. Without being too positive, but probably being too cryptic, I think we can expect to see deals made on vacation rights for research assistants, a GTFF presence at some faculty trainings, some improvements to the workspace/work environment language, the ability for GTFs to ask for reassignment if they have security concerns, and an improvement to our grievance procedures.
This Friday: The GTFF will hit the UO with our counters to their monetary proposals. A brief recap -- we asked for a 10% raise to the minimum wage over 2 years, they offered an 8% increase over 2 years. We asked for a complete elimination of all fees GTFs currently pay. The UO proposed increasing fees GTFs pay and removing the cap on fees. And on health care the UO offered to extend the deal we currently have and lower the cost of adding children to the plan by $100 a term (instead of a $100 child care benefit). We respond on health care this week.
Next Tuesday: We have to come back on all the non-economic proposals.
This is a busy week coming up. If you can make to these sessions, we'd really appreciate it. The team loves to know that people care about what is happening in bargaining.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
My Two Hats
For those who have been around the Union for a while and have had the pleasure of seeing a few bargaining sessions, you may remembered the once every two year rite of passage as Dean Linton would give his famed “two hats” speech. Sadly it didn’t happen this last Friday, though he did warn us to watch our rhetoric, we can say we got a different kind of two hats speech. The University opened with the old let’s talk about the “total package” that we fine GTFs get, remember now we’re the best and brightest, and how we should be thankful that while the University raised tuition they once again agreed to pay the extra costs. And after all, they reminded us, you have to talk about the tuition waiver because when a GTF is busy running labs, teaching discussion sections, and grading papers at a greatly discounted price, we can’t forget that the University suffered “lost” income when we didn’t pay tuition. Followed by a gripping presentation about how their wage proposal is commensurate with other EMPLOYEE groups on campus and than immediately followed by a presentation where the University reminded their EMPLOYEES that they are STUDENTS that should pay their rightful fees. We’ll forget the fact that they largely contradicted themselves by demanding that we pay large chunks of “STUDENT fees”, but also agreed to pay the “mandatory UNIVERSITY fees (some of which may actually be classified as student fees?).” Furthermore, they were quick to point out that if we wanted to we could just vote to lower those fees. That’s right, I remember now, I never voted on those fees in the first place and while I had no power over their creation, I certainly have the power to get rid of those pesky “student fees.” But even better, all I have to do is remember that I too have two hats and while I work for that poverty wage I can be happy to know that I also pay those “student fees” so I can stand in solidarity with my fellow students. Because when I think of it like that, I don’t mind giving back 9% of my salary. Wait, I think I remember something about how we shouldn’t be taxed by place that we work for, but I would have to put on my EMPLOYEE hat to think like that.
helping bring up the social class rear,
Mark
GTFF Bargaining in the News
If you missed it, you can catch the Emerald article about bargaining here. It's pretty accurate.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Getting Fired Up
[Read the post before this one for a summation of the UO's offers on economics, then come back here.]
[UPDATE: When I first posted this, I relied on some back-of-the-envelope calculations that have proved less than accurate. I originally estimated that the UO spent around $13M a year on GTF compensation. I now believe that $18M is a closer figure. So, when I was using the $13M figure, I believed that the UO's economic offer of an additional $300,000 in wage compensation was 2.3% of their total outlay for GTFs. Of course, if the UO spends $18M on GTFs, then the $300,000 represents only a 1.67% increase to GTF compensation. I have corrected the post below.]
The more I think about the UO's offers, the more pissy I get. They offered a 4% raise to the minimum in the first year. According to my calculations, this will cost them about $300,000. They offered to pay $100 a term for children's health care. I estimate this will cost them about $16,000 per year. So $316,000 in new benefits.
But they proposed raising fees on aprox. 1330 GTFs by $2 per term. This is $8000 a year in money back to them. They also proposed lowering the amount of money they pay for COBRA administration by $10,000. So in their proposal, they save $18,000.
They did also offer to pick up health care increases up to 20%, but we won't know how much money that is, if any, until May at the earliest, so that's a wash for now.
So they offered to increase total GTF compensation by around $300,000. They currently spend approximately $18 million on GTF compensation (wages, fees, health care). So their proposal would increase total GTF compensation by 1.67%.
1.67%.
GTFs teach 30% of the instructional FTE on campus. GTFs do the shit academic work on campus. We grade papers, spend all night in labs, lead discussion sections, file paperwork. We do all the jobs that professors don't want to do, freeing them up for the research, conferences, and all the good parts of an academic career. The UO gets all of the shit work done for about $18 million dollars a year. That's on an institutional budget of $400,000,000.
So when they walk in and say that $300,000 and 1.67% is all they have for us -- and then pat themselves on the back for their generosity--I start to get fired up.
Hope you do, too.
[UPDATE: When I first posted this, I relied on some back-of-the-envelope calculations that have proved less than accurate. I originally estimated that the UO spent around $13M a year on GTF compensation. I now believe that $18M is a closer figure. So, when I was using the $13M figure, I believed that the UO's economic offer of an additional $300,000 in wage compensation was 2.3% of their total outlay for GTFs. Of course, if the UO spends $18M on GTFs, then the $300,000 represents only a 1.67% increase to GTF compensation. I have corrected the post below.]
The more I think about the UO's offers, the more pissy I get. They offered a 4% raise to the minimum in the first year. According to my calculations, this will cost them about $300,000. They offered to pay $100 a term for children's health care. I estimate this will cost them about $16,000 per year. So $316,000 in new benefits.
But they proposed raising fees on aprox. 1330 GTFs by $2 per term. This is $8000 a year in money back to them. They also proposed lowering the amount of money they pay for COBRA administration by $10,000. So in their proposal, they save $18,000.
They did also offer to pick up health care increases up to 20%, but we won't know how much money that is, if any, until May at the earliest, so that's a wash for now.
So they offered to increase total GTF compensation by around $300,000. They currently spend approximately $18 million on GTF compensation (wages, fees, health care). So their proposal would increase total GTF compensation by 1.67%.
1.67%.
GTFs teach 30% of the instructional FTE on campus. GTFs do the shit academic work on campus. We grade papers, spend all night in labs, lead discussion sections, file paperwork. We do all the jobs that professors don't want to do, freeing them up for the research, conferences, and all the good parts of an academic career. The UO gets all of the shit work done for about $18 million dollars a year. That's on an institutional budget of $400,000,000.
So when they walk in and say that $300,000 and 1.67% is all they have for us -- and then pat themselves on the back for their generosity--I start to get fired up.
Hope you do, too.
Did Not See That Coming
The UO's initial offer on fees is a fee increase.
Not a huge increase mind you, $2 a term, but we'd also lose the cap on fees, so they could go up at any time. The UO suggests that if you want fees to go down you should take over the student government and vote them down.
That's right, in addition to working one third of the instructional hours at the UO, going to graduate school, getting your research done, finishing in 7 years, and trying to have some sort of life, you should also plan on running for student government. You know, a little something to do in your spare time.
Dean Linton warned me to watch my rhetoric on this issue. Which is kind of funny, because if he wanted me to watch my rhetoric, you'd think he would have come with maybe a fee decrease instead of an increase. But I will honor the man's request and watch my rhetoric.
The UO offered a fee increase for all GTFs.
If you do not earn the minimum wage or have children, your benefits in the next two years would get worse under the UO's proposals.
The UO proposed to take away the absolute cap on fees that is currently in place and replace it with a cap only on the fees they control. Your fees would go up if the ASUO votes to increase fees. (Maybe to help pay for a new arena?)
This offer sucks.
/watch
On wages, they offered to raise the minimum wages by 8% over two years. This isn't a bad offer at all. It's what they started out offering last year. It would cost them about $1 million over two years. I think. They weren't too terribly clear on how they got that figure. They basically admitted they made a semi-informed guess.
As far as wage offers go, I've seen worse. I've seen better mind you, but I have seen worse. Unfortunately, any goodwill engendered by the wage offer was more than wasted by the fee offer.
On the issue of "timely pay," the UO said "no." Oddly enough, they said no because the problem is so widespread they can't solve it for us because they can't solve it for any other employee group. Make sense? When pressed to explain or elucidate exactly which employee groups were suffering from late pay like GTFs are, the UO was unable to do so. But trust them, this is a widespread problem. Too big to be fixed. Except they're working on it. How are they working on it? They can't say.
They did come up with a creative little solution to the child care problem. They offered to knock $100 off the cost of cost of adding a kid to the health insurance. It's not the same thing and we haven't really looked at potential problems, but at least they spent more than 5 minutes thinking about this issue. Unlike, say, fees or timely pay.
So there we have it. The opening positions are staked out. Where we go from here is the fun part. The UO tries to convince us that their "million dollar offer" is that absolute best they can do. It's our job not to buy that. Actually, it's their job to convince us that their offer is pretty close to their best offer, so that we feel like any improvement to their opening offer is a "victory" for us. It is our job to stay focused on the need to eliminate fees on GTFs and not get caught up in "making a deal." Believe me, it's harder than it sounds.
Not a huge increase mind you, $2 a term, but we'd also lose the cap on fees, so they could go up at any time. The UO suggests that if you want fees to go down you should take over the student government and vote them down.
That's right, in addition to working one third of the instructional hours at the UO, going to graduate school, getting your research done, finishing in 7 years, and trying to have some sort of life, you should also plan on running for student government. You know, a little something to do in your spare time.
Dean Linton warned me to watch my rhetoric on this issue. Which is kind of funny, because if he wanted me to watch my rhetoric, you'd think he would have come with maybe a fee decrease instead of an increase. But I will honor the man's request and watch my rhetoric.
The UO offered a fee increase for all GTFs.
If you do not earn the minimum wage or have children, your benefits in the next two years would get worse under the UO's proposals.
The UO proposed to take away the absolute cap on fees that is currently in place and replace it with a cap only on the fees they control. Your fees would go up if the ASUO votes to increase fees. (Maybe to help pay for a new arena?)
This offer sucks.
/watch
On wages, they offered to raise the minimum wages by 8% over two years. This isn't a bad offer at all. It's what they started out offering last year. It would cost them about $1 million over two years. I think. They weren't too terribly clear on how they got that figure. They basically admitted they made a semi-informed guess.
As far as wage offers go, I've seen worse. I've seen better mind you, but I have seen worse. Unfortunately, any goodwill engendered by the wage offer was more than wasted by the fee offer.
On the issue of "timely pay," the UO said "no." Oddly enough, they said no because the problem is so widespread they can't solve it for us because they can't solve it for any other employee group. Make sense? When pressed to explain or elucidate exactly which employee groups were suffering from late pay like GTFs are, the UO was unable to do so. But trust them, this is a widespread problem. Too big to be fixed. Except they're working on it. How are they working on it? They can't say.
They did come up with a creative little solution to the child care problem. They offered to knock $100 off the cost of cost of adding a kid to the health insurance. It's not the same thing and we haven't really looked at potential problems, but at least they spent more than 5 minutes thinking about this issue. Unlike, say, fees or timely pay.
So there we have it. The opening positions are staked out. Where we go from here is the fun part. The UO tries to convince us that their "million dollar offer" is that absolute best they can do. It's our job not to buy that. Actually, it's their job to convince us that their offer is pretty close to their best offer, so that we feel like any improvement to their opening offer is a "victory" for us. It is our job to stay focused on the need to eliminate fees on GTFs and not get caught up in "making a deal." Believe me, it's harder than it sounds.
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