FYI: Graduate employees hold rally for higher pay

News-Gazette, Thursday December 7, 2006
By Christine Des Garennes

With temperatures hovering around freezing and less than a week to go before final exams begin, University of Illinois graduate employees took a break from studying and grading Wednesday to rally on campus for higher pay.

The Graduate Employees' Organization and the UI have been negotiating for a new contract since April. Several rallies and more than a dozen bargain sessions later, the two sides are still in discussions. Recently, tensions rose between the UI and the union when they started negotiating wages.

The current minimum graduate stipend – the salary a graduate student earns as a research assistant or teaching assistant – is $12,220. [...] Under the current UI proposal, the stipend would rise by 2.5 percent to $12,586 for 2006-2007. For 2007-2008, assistants would make a minimum of $12,963 and in 2008-2009 the minimum would increase to $13,354.

But that's not enough to cover the rising costs of living for a student, said union members.

[...] "Our own minimum stipend doesn't meet the published figures (by the UI's Office of Admissions and Records) for what it takes to live in Champaign-Urbana," Simeone said.

According to that office's Web site, graduate student expenses average close to $14,000 a year in Champaign-Urbana for room, board and other living expenses.

Also at issue are health care costs and the other student fees the graduate employees pay the university. [...]

The health care premium for a graduate employee is $256 per semester or $756 a year. But add a spouse and children to the plan, and graduate employees could spend more than $1,000 per semester for health coverage.

"For some students it's more cost effective to fly back to their home country to receive care there, and that includes the cost of airfare," Simeone said. [...]

The next bargaining session is scheduled for Dec. 13.

"We have an outstanding offer and have been waiting four weeks for a response. We're hoping for a response at that meeting," Kaler said of Dec. 13.

If there is no settlement soon, the two sides can request federal mediation. [...]

Find the rest of this article here.

FYI: Graduate employees, University continue to negotiate earnings

Daily Illini
Drake Baer, Posted: 11/29/06

The University and the Graduate Employees Organization are in continuing negotiations over the issues of earnings and insurance for teaching assistants and graduate students.

[...] He said that the remaining issues to be resolved are also perhaps the most important. The proposal made by the University was a three-year contract with increases to stipends in each of three years and changes made to the insurance plan.

The proposed graduate employee minimum salary rate for teaching assistants and graduate assistants, on average, was a $12,586 annualized salary or a 2.5 percent increase, whichever is greater, each year. [...] "Graduate students are also getting a fee waiver, $12,500 added to the tuition fee waiver. It's a pretty good deal," Veazie said.

Others seem to disagree.

[...] Brian Dolber, graduate student, said that the University has come across "as a completely disrespectful institution that doesn't care about students or employees but only care about their bottom line."

The GEO is not ignoring what the University has put on the table, but they are keeping things in "financial perspective," Simeone added.

[...] "We don't want to talk about any wage deduction as a raise until it is a raise over the cost of inflation. Any raise under the rate of 3.6 percent isn't really a raise," Simeone said.

[...] Veazie said that the University is ready to settle on a fair contract for graduate students and that they are frustrated by the delay, referring to the four-week break between meetings.

The University's negotiating team has "repeatedly stalled and delayed" in regard to issues such as health care and wages, Dolber said.

This is not the absolute final configuration of the contract, but it's close to that, Veazie said. He said that if the union wants "a lot more," then the next step would be mediation.

"The next step for both parties is to listen. We're happy that the University wants to settle sooner rather than later, but we won't settle for anything that's unfair," Simeone said.

The next meeting will be held Dec. 13.

The full article can be found here

FYI: Adjuct (Part-time) Faculty Not Satisfied with Working Conditions

Adjuncts Forgotten Amidst Grad Student Negotiations
Drake Baer, Daily Illini, 11/3/06

There have been ongoing negotiations between the University and graduate employees in an effort to come up with a fair and equitable contract for both sides. The graduate employees are organized and have made their presence known through demonstrations all over campus. However, another group of academic professionals has not received that recognition - adjunct faculty members.

The benefits, pay, and working conditions vary greatly amongst different members of University faculty because not every instructor at the University is full time. Adjunct faculty do not have the guaranteed work that their full-time colleagues receive. ...

"The situation varies from whole year, multi-year, to (contracts that are) per course and per hour, really the academic equivalent of day labor," he said. ...

Many adjuncts have more than one teaching job at a time, and most work for multiple institutes, especially in major metropolitan areas such as Chicago, Berry said. University of Illinois-Chicago has 1,112 part-time faculty members, whereas the Urbana campus has 850 part-time faculty, according to the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

"Our teaching conditions are the students' learning conditions," Berry said. ...

He said that an adjunct will earn from $600 to $1200 a course at an average institution (but significantly higher at the University).

"You can't live on that," Higbie said. ... "How long can you carry on the University's principles when you're exploiting certain sections of your workforce?" ... Higbie said that the University should be a "model employer," and not simply follow what corporations are doing.

You can read the WHOLE ARTICLE HERE.

FYI: Graduate Employees Negotiating Wages, Benefits

University, graduate employees continue talks--Two parties still in negotiations for wages, benefits
Drake Baer, Daily Illini, 10/27/06

After months of deliberation, the University and the Graduate Employee Organization are continuing negotiations over wages and benefits. On Oct. 16 they came to an agreement over professional evaluation for teaching assistants.

However, there has been little progress on the major issues of pay and other contentious matters, according to Christopher Simeone, lead negotiator of the GEO. He said that the GEO is awaiting the University's agreement to additional bargaining dates.

Frank T. Higbie, assistant professor of history at the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, said that he has been involved with the GEO since his days as a doctoral student in the mid-1990s. [...]

He said the issue comes down to whether or not workers have a right to organize [...].

"What are they afraid of?" asked Higbie. "That the grad assistants are going to tear down the University?"

Higbie said graduate employee unions are at nearly all of the University's peer institutions. [...]

Cary Nelson, English professor and president of the American Association of University Professors, said that the union has provided a few areas of concern to the University, such as asking it to inform international graduate students of the American 911 system.

Nelson said that when the union asked the University to inform the international graduate students of the 911 system, the University declined on the grounds that "they would not have the union micromanage their affairs."

"Like many corporate entities, the University is not bargaining in good faith," said Nelson. "Their primary aims are to pay grad students as little as possible, to exhaust union leadership and to decrease students' faith in the union...I call that bargaining in bad faith." [...]

You can read the WHOLE ARTICLE HERE.

FYI: Graduate Employees Plan Union Picket

Graduate Employees Plan Union Picket

--Drake Baer

Posted: 10/13/06

Since late April, the Graduate Employees Organization has been in negotiations with the University over a new contract, but no agreements have been made. In the past few months, the union has picketed at Grainger Library, the Illini Union and other locations across campus.

...

Union members have said that they are displeased with the state of health care and other benefits offered by the University and are in intense negotiations with the University.

...

The poor wages and benefits offered by the University are not "financially commensurate with our responsibilities" as teaching assistants and graduate employees, Shulman said.

Robin Kaler, University spokeswoman, said the University is giving all it can to graduate students.

...

Schulman, though, said that graduate students work too hard for too few benefits.

"We're the ones who make contact with the students, and not the professors, so informally a lot of the work falls on us," she said. "When you become an instructor, there's a whole slew of responsibilities beyond grading papers and tests."

Shulman said that she also writes letters of recommendation and deals with issues of plagiarism.

She said that while she welcomes these additional responsibilities, the pay she earns does not properly correspond to the time she invests. Undergraduate education suffers due to the University's treatment of graduate employee instructors, she added.

...

"What we've experienced is a basic unwillingness to cooperate from the University," said Christopher Simeone, graduate student and lead negotiator for the Graduate Employees Organization. "The University is not interested in genuine rational dialogue. They are interested in dragging it out as long as possible."

"I would best describe the University's approach as incredibly disappointing and unproductive. It's not exaggerating to say that they have (historically) been dragged to the bargaining table," he said.

David Morris, a graduate employee and former co-president of the Graduate Employees Organization, also said that the graduate employee health plan is similar to the undergraduate health plan but with some minor changes.

...

"It's student insurance, not employee insurance," Morris said. "The University assumes that many grad students are provided for by their parents, but that's simply not the truth. Grad employees have partners and children."

Simeone said that he is concerned with how the University is marketing itself toward prospective academics.

"What they're telling developing scholars is that you'll be impoverished and disrespected," Simeone said. He added that if the University desires to raise its prestige, it must treat its students and employees well.

"We are not asking for a handout but instead fair compensation for the work we do," Simeone said.

Graduate employees, he said, don't desire luxuries but income competitive with the cost of living, studying and teaching at the University.

Graduate Employees Plan Union Picket - News