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Lend Your Support to Our Fellow Graduate Employees @ SIU!

Posted by odellcampbell on November 1, 2011
Posted in: Bargaining, Current Issues, Higher Ed Unions, Labor Movement, News, Resources, Take Action!, UIUC Coalitions. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

The 1,750 graduate employees, represented by Graduate Assistants United (GAU), at Southern Illinois University Carbondale have now been working without a contract for more than 480 days. They are joined by tenured and tenure-track, civil service employees and non-tenured faculty – together making up 3,500 unionized employees on the SIUC campus.

This past Monday members of GAU voted to set a strike deadline. If no agreement has been reached by 12:01 AM November 3rd, union members will walk off the job, commencing one of the largest higher education strikes in history.

Their demands are simple: a contract that guarantees quality, affordable health care to graduate employees, the option to buy coverage for spouses and children, and an end to skyrocketing fees, which have doubled over the past 5 years. Faculty are fighting to preserve tenure (the administration wants the right to lay offtenured faculty due to financial reasons) and civil service employees and those non-tenured faculty are fighting layoffs and furloughs.

It’s not too late to help our fellow graduate employees in Southern Illinois. You can email or call the SIUC administration to settle these contracts today! Help keep grads and faculty in the classrooms and offices and off the picket lines!

Ms. Misty Whittington
Executive Secretary of the Board
Office of the Southern Illinois University Board of Trustees
(618) 536-3357

Rita Cheng: rcheng@siu.edu
SIUC Chancellor
(618) 453-2341

Glenn Poshard: poshard@siu.edu
SIU President
(618) 536-3357

GEO Stands In Solidarity With Southern Illinois University Graduate Assistants United

Posted by odellcampbell on October 22, 2011
Posted in: Bargaining, Current Issues, Labor Movement, News, Take Action!, UIUC Coalitions. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

The members of the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO), Illinois Federation of Teachers Local 6300, AFL-CIO, stand in solidarity with the members of the Graduate Assistants United and their fellow unions on the Southern Illinois University (SIU) campus as they fight to secure a freeze on fees that have gone up more than $1,000 since 2006 and adequate health care for their members and their members’ families.

Members of the GEO support the Carbondale graduate assistants as they work to find an agreement with the University and consider the need to strike in the face of insufficient bargaining progress. In 2009 the GEO held a successful strike in order to secure tuition waivers, which were a part of the contract that our members were not willing to compromise on.

We also stand in solidarity with the three other unions that are currently in negotiations with the SIU administration (the Association of Civil Service Employees, the Non-Tenure Track Faculty Association, and the Faculty Association). We are particularly concerned that the SIU administration is seeking the authority to lay off tenured professors, at the administration’s sole discretion, for financial reasons.  This bypasses and undermines the tenure system. Many of us will become faculty members in the future and feel strongly that the integrity of our universities and the future of our academic careers are dependent on respecting the tenure system.

We know that labor solidarity in education is necessary to protect the future of accessible and quality public higher education.  As university employees and members of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, we send our support for our fellow education workers in the Graduate Assistants United of the National Education Association.

In solidarity,

The members of the UIUC Graduate Employees Organization

GEO Calls on Members to Participate in AFL-CIO America Wants to Work Week: Occupy C-U Rally 10/15 at Westside Park

Posted by odellcampbell on October 13, 2011
Posted in: Activities, Current Issues, Events, Labor Movement, News, Take Action!, UIUC Coalitions. Tagged: , , , , , . 1 comment

The members of the Graduate Employees Organization, Illinois Federation of Teachers Local 6300, AFL-CIO, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, enthusiastically endorse the America Wants to Work National Week of Action sponsored by our parent organization, the AFL-CIO.

We stand in solidarity with the National Week of Action in two ways: first, as we enter a bargaining year, our daily, weekly, and monthly organizing efforts share the common goal of increasing access to high quality graduate employment opportunities at a major public University in the United States.  In particular, our organizing efforts around increasing union membership, securing full tuition waivers for graduate employees, and insisting on fair wages and benefits have the goal of making graduate research and employment accessible to minority and working class students in the United States and Illinois.

Second, as we organize around our membership and our contract, our members continue to participate in solidarity actions with local, state, and national unions around the country.  Specifically, we endorse all actions in Champaign-Urbana connected with the AFL-CIO National Week of Action, including the Occupy C-U rally in Champaign on October 15.  We encourage our members to join other local unions and activists to demonstrate for the right of all working people to have access to good jobs.

Check out the Facebook Event page for Occupy CU (10/15) here: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=302100619806388

GEO Solidarity With Tacoma Education Association

Posted by odellcampbell on August 24, 2011
Posted in: Bargaining, Current Issues, Labor Movement, News, Press Coverage, Take Action!, UIUC Coalitions. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

The members of the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO), Illinois Federation of Teachers Local 6300, AFL-CIO, stand in solidarity with the members of the Tacoma Education Association (TEA) and their courageous decision to strike for a fair contract.

Members of the GEO understand that withholding labor is vitally important as a tool in collective bargaining.  It was only by first authorizing and then carrying out one of the five largest work stoppages in the United States in 2009 that the GEO was able to secure any reasonable concessions from the University of Illinois Board of Trustees in our current 2009-2012 contract.

The GEO commends the TEA’s decision to withhold education labor as a necessary tool for protecting conditions necessary for a quality public education, including the support and retention of experienced teachers, protecting teachers against discrimination, and contractual protections against excessive class sizes.

The Tacoma Public School officials said that TEA members acted unreasonably, claiming the strike hurt their student’s education.  Nothing can be farther from the truth: it was the Tacoma Public Schools’ refusal to bargain fairly with the TEA that hurt students.  We know that the decision to strike is never easy, but when other options have been exhausted, striking to protect the future of public education in Tacoma is in the best interest of students, families, teachers, and other Tacoma Public School employees.

According to the Tacoma News Tribune, “TEA President Andy Coons…said teachers are modeling for their students how to be active citizens.”  The members of the GEO could not agree more, and we congratulate the TEA on their new contract.

We stand with the TEA in affirming that without a work action demonstrating the resolve and solidarity of TEA members and their allies in the community, it unlikely that the TEA could have successfully resisted district efforts to increase class sizes and denigrate the vital role that experienced teachers play in educating Tacoma’s children.

The News Tribune and other local sources argue that the manner in which the strike was resolved–with mediation overseen by Governor Christine Gregoire–demonstrates that the work action was unnecessary in the first place.  The TNT and others further suggest that the strike was just a power play by the Washington Education Association.

Let us be clear: it is obvious even from the News Tribune’s coverage that this was a strike driven by membership.  Nearly 90% of the TEA bargaining unit voted to strike, and an overwhelming majority of those voted to continue the strike in defiance of an anti-union court order.  And for elected officials to become involved in this manner, unions must first demonstrate the value of their labor through work actions and other demonstrations of solidarity.

If the TEA strike was a Washington Education Association power play, it is a wonderful example of the power of democratic decision making among working teachers to protect their rights and the interests of their students.  We at the GEO hope that other WEA locals will follow the Tacoma Education Association’s courageous example.

As university employees and members of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, we know that labor solidarity in education is necessary to protect the future of accessible and high quality public education at all levels.  We particularly urge the students, staff, faculty, administration, and alumni of Tacoma’s colleges and universities (including Tacoma Community College, the University of Washington, Tacoma, the University of Puget Sound, Pacific Lutheran University, and the Evergreen State University, Tacoma) to support the TEA in any way that they can.

In solidarity,

The members of the UIUC Graduate Employees Organization

The Graduate Employees Organization, AFT/IFT Local 6300, AFL-CIO, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, represents approximately 2,700 Teaching and Graduate Assistants on the UIUC Campus. In November 2009, over 1,000 GEO members successfully went on strike to secure a fair contract for graduate employees and a more accessible UIUC. The GEO continues to work for high quality and accessible public education in Illinois.  For more information, please contact GEO Communications Officer Rodrigo Pacheco-McEvoy at rodrigo.pacheco.mcevoy@gmail.com or geo@uigeo.org.

Read our related solidarity statement with the CMU Faculty Association after the jump.

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UIC GEO Calls Strike! Join us in Chicago on Tuesday!

Posted by odellcampbell on April 5, 2010
Posted in: Bargaining, Events, Labor Movement, News, Press Coverage, Take Action!, UIUC Coalitions. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

As outlined in the following press release, the University of Illinois at Chicago Graduate Employees’ Organization has voted overwhelmingly to call a strike against the Board of Trustees at the University of Illinois.  Members of the UIUC GEO are taking a van of supporters up north on Tuesday, April 6, at 7 am – currently we have space for four additional members, and possibly more.  If you are interested in going up north to support our sisters and brothers in the UIC GEO and would like space in the van, you need to contact Amy Livingston at amy.l.livingston by 4 pm TODAY, Monday, April 5th.

Gina Gemmel
Phone: 773-413-0349
Email:  gmgemmel@gmail.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

GEO, UNION REPRESENTING 1400 TEACHERS AND RESEARCHERS AT UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-CHICAGO, OVERWHELMINGLY VOTES TO STRIKE

Over the last two days, 84% of the Graduate Employees Organizations (GEO) members voted to call a strike against the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. GEO members will hold a rally on Monday, April 5, in support of their last scheduled federal mediation session with the UIC administration.

The GEO’s first agreement expired in August 2009, and GEO members have been negotiating a new contract since April 2009. After a year of negotiations, GEO members are on the verge of a strike because the UIC administration refuses to secure tuition waivers or address tuition differentials.

“All TAs and GAs currently receive a tuition waiver,” said Charles Moss, GEO President, “so the fact that the university wants the freedom to discontinue this benefit is unacceptable.”

Many GEO members earn less than $15,000 per year, but because of “Tuition Differential Fees,” imposed by UIC, pay up to $11,000 per year in fees back to the university. “We are being gouged by TD fees which increase every year without warning,” said Sarita Heer, Teaching Assistant in Art History. “All we want is to have input and know why these fees keep increasing. Isn’t it fair for UIC to tell us where our money is going?”

The GEO and the university will hold their final scheduled contract negotiation session with the help of a federal mediator on Monday, April 5, and will hold a rally outside Student Center East, 750 S. Halsted, Chicago, IL at 8:00 AM.

“So far, organizations at UIC representing more than 25,000 students and dozens of faculty have issued statements of support,” said Gina Gemmel, Teaching Assistant in English and GEO Communications Chair, “so we expect Monday’s rally to be massive, and we remain committed to reaching an agreement on Monday which includes tuition waiver security and gives us a say in Tuition Differential fees.”

The Graduate Employees Organization, AFT local 6297, AFL-CIO, is the labor union representing more than 1400 Teaching and Graduate Assistants at UIC who teach undergraduate classes, grade papers, work in offices, design websites, maintain databases, and perform other work crucial to the teaching and research missions of the university.

Statement by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on the Citizens United Supreme Court decision

Posted by richpotter on January 27, 2010
Posted in: Current Issues, Labor Movement. Tagged: , . Leave a Comment

Today, the Supreme Court further tilted the playing field in favor of business corporations in public elections. By allowing unlimited corporate treasury expenditures that explicitly support or oppose particular candidates, the Court has increased the already excessive influence that corporations exert in our electoral system. And we believe the Court wrongly treated corporate expenditures the same as union expenditures, contrary to the arguments we made in our brief in this case. Unions, unlike businesses, are democratically-controlled, nonprofit membership organizations representing working men and women across the country, and their independent speech should accordingly be given greater protection.

The AFL-CIO supports a system of campaign finance regulation that promotes democratic participation in elections by individuals and their associations; protects legitimate independent speech rights; offers public financing to candidates while firmly regulating contributions to them; and guarantees effective disclosure of who is paying for what.