The Newspaper of the Graduate
Employees’ Organization IFT/AFT
Contents
- Why Strike?
In Wake of Fall Strike Administration Moves
to Improve Grad Life
Strike for Your Students: Why Grad Unionization
is Good for Undergrads
What Is The GEO Trying To Do? -
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Why Strike?
By Kate Bullard
The Graduate Employees’ Organization has had a long history at the University
of Illinois. We started organizing almost ten years ago, filed a request
with the Labor Board for an official election containing over 3200
graduate employee signatures on it, and held a community-sponsored
election that we resoundingly won but which the administration ignored.
At every turn in our history, we have tried to win recognition through
the "appropriate" channels normally used for this purpose.
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Hundreds of graduate employees took to the picket lines in |
We have tried the legislature
(where we were stymied by the influence of the administration), the Labor
Board (where anti-union governors have appointed anti-union bureaucrats
to decide our fate), and old-fashioned
meetings (where we have been condescended to and ignored). We have
tried civil disobedience
and other forms of protest, but in the end we still don’t have a
contract. We don’t even have a commitment from the university administration
to try to reach a negotiated settlement.
The only thing left for us to do is to withdraw our labor, perhaps repeatedly,
until the university administration sits down and negotiates with us in
the respectful manner we deserve as the teachers, researchers, and workers
who help make this campus run. We know from our successful walkout
last semester that when we don’t work, the administration notices.
Would they rather spend hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting us with
their union-busting lawyers, provoke more work stoppages, and force the
disruption of undergraduate education just to avoid democratic input from
their graduate employees? Apparently so! What are they so afraid of?
For all GEO members a strike is a scary thing and it is no doubt a risk.
The 3-day walk out planned for the week of April 8 is no exception. But
solidarity is our strength and we are only beginning to see how powerful
it is.
I will walk out when the time comes because I want a contract.
I want to know that my rights as an employee are guaranteed. I want a
say in my working conditions. My students are very important to me, and
that is why I will be working to make this strike happen and I will be
on the picket lines with my union. I urge you to join me. Let the GEO
office know what you can do to help – call 344-8283 or e-mail geo@uigeo.org.
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In Wake of Fall Strike Administration Moves to Improve Grad Life
By Todd Chatman
Have you heard about the money flooding into LAS for improvements in
graduate students’ lives? The English Department is getting $150,000 each
of the next three years to increase graduate student fellowships, plus
$10,000 for summer fellowships, and more is possibly on the way. Philosophy
is getting more summer fellowship money, too, and "discussions"
are underway to dramatically decrease teaching loads in History and English,
while keeping TA wages at current levels or more.
What about those budget cuts we’ve all heard so much about? Why would
the University start throwing money at graduate students just when it
supposedly has no money to throw? The administration claims all these
new initiatives to improve the lives of graduate teachers "is a mark
of Chancellor Nancy Cantor and Provost Richard Herman’s increased commitment
to excellence in the Humanities." Hmmm… That’s possible…
However, it’s also a fact that in the last two years, the GEO has sharply
escalated its pressure on the administration to recognize the right of
employees to have a union. It’s also a fact that English, History, and
Philosophy are three of the departments whose graduate students are most
active in the union. Does union pressure work? Well, we think you can
figure that one out for yourself.
These improvements to grad life show that the university agrees with
what the GEO has always argued: improved treatment of teachers leads to
better education for students.
At the same time, it’s important to recognize that until we get a contract,
any improvements grads receive are purely at the capricious discretion
of the administration; what it gives today, it could take away tomorrow.
Furthermore, the university has no real forum for consulting with graduate
employees (or instructors and lecturers, for that matter) on how best
to improve the lives of teachers, and thereby improve education; without
collective bargaining rights, we simply have to take whatever administrators
decide is best.
In short, these new initiatives to improve grad life emphasize that union
pressure works, and they also show the importance of getting the university
to recognize our right to bargain collectively so that we can secure a
voice in our work lives. The GEO will be conducting several actions this
semester to help keep the pressure on the university to recognize graduate
employee bargaining rights.
In the meantime, keep your eyes open for more administration-sponsored
attempts to divert graduate employees from their goal of union representation
and a real voice in the decisions that affect them as vital employees
of this campus. Even better, contact the GEO office at 344-8283 or at
geo@uigeo.org to let them know what
you can do to help improve education at the U of I by keeping these improvements
to grad life coming.
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"Hey Nancy,
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Strike for Your Students:
Why Grad Unionization is Good for Undergrads
By Rob Henn
Just before GEO’s 2-day work
stoppage last semester, Chancellor Nancy Cantor sent an e-mail to
the entire campus. Though she never mentioned the upcoming GEO action
by name, her e-mail did rush to reassure everyone that classes—she
claimed to think—would be meeting as normal. "The faculty and
TAs are dedicated teachers," she noted. Amidst the administrative
fog, this one phrase stood out as a moment of truth. For graduate teachers
are dedicated teachers. In fact, I would argue, graduate teachers often
take teaching more seriously than many administrators here. And no organization
on campus is taking the teaching of undergraduates more seriously than the GEO. In fact, it’s the only organization fighting to stop the decline of undergraduate education at this university.
Let’s look at the context of Chancellor Cantor’s remarks about undergraduate
education. In 1942, administrators here spent nearly half (49%) of the
U of I’s budget on instruction. Last year, they spent under a quarter
of it (24%) on teaching—and the percentage is still declining. Where’s
the money going to, and how are administrative priorities shifting? Over
the past twenty years, the money’s been going to increasingly corporate
research that contributes little to the university’s educational mission.
The prominence of teaching at this university has been in eclipse for
a good long while.
And the quality of teaching is also being endangered. For over the past
ten years administrators have been quietly transferring the work of education
from tenured faculty to already overworked and under-compensated graduate
teachers. From October 1992 through October 2001, the number of full-time
equivalent (FTE) positions for tenured faculty in the U of I system has
dropped by 135, while the number of FTE grad assistants has risen by 246.
This is to say nothing of the equally astonishing rise in non-tenure track
faculty positions. The figures are even more startling when you realize
that they take into account the addition of another campus (Springfield)
in 1995, a campus which added many tenured professors and almost no graduate
employees to the U of I system. Such trends away from tenured labor and
toward more and more overworked graduate labor are good for neither undergraduate
nor graduate education.
What does it mean to take undergraduate education seriously in such a
context? I would argue that it means unionization. A union contract would
allow graduate teachers to guarantee quality job training, with input
from both faculty and more experienced graduate teachers in their field.
A union contract would allow graduate teachers to secure the equipment—up-to-date
computers, printers, lab equipment, work space, etc.—they need to
do their jobs correctly and without hassle. A union contract would also,
and this is no small point, guarantee that graduate teaching was openly
recognized as a professional activity—rather than the mere receiving
of "financial aid," as the Chancellor would have us believe
now.
And last but certainly not least, a union contract would allow graduate
teachers to work a reasonable number of hours each week so that they no
longer have to choose, as is so often the case now, between doing their
student work and doing work for their students. How? Under a union contract,
with a collective grievance procedure either the excessive teaching load
could be reduced, or the job description and compensation altered to reflect
reality.
Of course grad unionization is only part of the answer to reviving undergraduate
education at the U of I. The GEO ought to be in the forefront of a wider
movement to restore the place of all education at this university to that
of the highest priority. This movement should involve undergrads,
faculty, community
members, UI parents, and sympathetic administrators as well. But in
the meanwhile, those of us who worry about the effect of a strike on our
undergraduates—and I consider myself among them—ought to ask
ourselves a serious question. What’s more harmful to our students in the
long run: this university’s embrace of often unsupported and overworked
instruction, or a strike? I would submit that if you truly care about
your students and about undergraduate (as well as graduate) education
at the U of I—not just your students this semester, but in general,
and over the coming years—you should join the picket lines. Call
the GEO office at 344-8283 to offer your support.
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What Is The GEO Trying To Do?
The GEO is working to secure the right of graduate student employees
to decide for themselves whether they want union representation. The only
way to test the wishes of Teaching, Research, and Graduate Assistants
is to hold a binding election. The UI administration must agree to respect
the outcome of such an election and bargain with the union should a majority
vote for it.
The GEO will work to find common ground among all graduate employees,
regardless of race, gender, religion, disability, sexual orientation,
citizenship status, department, job category, or membership in the union.
Membership in the GEO is, and will remain, voluntary.
The GEO will strive to be inclusive and open to all graduate employees,
operate along democratic principles, act always in the best interests
of graduate employees, and act responsibly toward the entire university
community.
If the GEO wins union recognition, we will bargain with the university
administration in good faith toward mutually agreeable improvements to
employment policies and benefits for graduate employees. Issues that GEO
would negotiate with the Administration over include a fair grievance
procedure; reasonable workload limits; improvements in the cost, choice,
and quality of health care
for grads, their partners & dependents; better protections for international
employees; higher stipends; improved training;
paid training; widely available child
care; and many other issues.
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GET INVOLVED WITH
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The Organizer
The Organizer
Edited by:
GEO Staff
Kate Bullard
Todd Chatman
Rob Henn
GEO Officers:
Co-Presidents:
Uma Pimplaskar
Jon Coit (acting)
Treasurer:
Matt McClain
Communications Officer:
Dave Kamper
Parliamentarian:
Dave Rowland
Recording Secretary:
Rosemary Braun
The GEO is the only
organization advocating for
the interests of graduate students
employed as assistants at the
University of Illinois.
Join us and get
involved.
Your voice is important.
The Graduate Employees’ Organization is affiliated with the Illinois
Federation of Teachers.
2nd Floor, University YMCA
1001 S. Wright St.
217.344.8283
http://www.uigeo.org/
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