Graduate Employees Organization

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Have you noticed the date of this posting? Yup, it has been over a month since the University wanted to come to the Bargaining Table. And do you know what else? The semester ended yesterday. This means we have gone an entire semester without a new contract. As a member of the Bargaining Team, this is getting just plain ridiculous. We began Bargaining in late April. It is now December and we are still plugging away with intermittent Bargaining Sessions and the University has still barely touched on the top concerns of our members: raises, healthcare and fees. Well, they began talking about economics today. But they began with parking, because there is already an agreement in place about it and they only had to deal with issues of parking violations incurred while on the clock. Also appointment terms and criteria were discussed.  

Strangely enough, this has been one of the most productive and interesting sessions we have had. With appointment terms and criteria, things seems to get bogged down in the fact that the University asserted that there is not way to make people comply with the GEO Contract. But the point of having a contract is so that both the employer and the union have a set of standards for working conditions and related items and that these conditions are enforced. How distressing to think that the University claims it does not have a mechanism in place to reinforce the contract. Furthermore, the University noted that if they did find out about contract violations, it was through serendipity. It was all very frustrating to basically hear the University tell the GEO Bargaining Team that they do not want to bother expending further time and resources to make sure that various employing units follow the contract. But this is the message the University has been sending since day one: we do not want to make more work for ourselves.  

But the discussion on parking was fruitful. The University conceded that in the previous parking agreement that we could have the parking fees deducted from our paychecks as opposed to having us pay one lump sum in the beginning of the semester. They also agreed about parking violations incurred on the clock. They only thing the University did not give a full discussion on was keeping the current rates for parking for the life of the new contract. They seemed leery about agreeing to that, claiming that parking is self-sufficient, and a law unto itself. Sigh. This yet another example of the University claiming its parts and divisions when it is convenient and denying them when it is to its benefit.  

The last major issue discussed was related to housing. The GEO brought up the fact that if a worker is living in company (campus) housing, they should not be disciplined as students when issues arise. TAs and GAs should be able to file a grievance, just like any other work-related appeal. This brought up the sticky issue of when are TAs and GAs workers and when are they students. I am sure this issue will come up over and over. What a pain!  

Finally, we asserted that we could like to meet in early January and the weekdays available for our Bargaining Team were 7 and 8 January, and we could meet both days. We also told the University Bargaining Team that we expected more discussion on economic issues at the next meeting.  

The University eventually set a date for our next Bargaining Session for 8 January 2010, 10AM, Monarch Room on the third floor of SCE. Come if you are around. Things are starting to get very interesting at the Bargaining Table.  

Sarita