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.