While we just heard the good news that our friends at the Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO) reached a tentative contract agreement with the administration of UI Urbana-Champaign, we at GSU wanted to voice our support. Here is a link to a petition of support for GEO and below is the text of a resolution of solidarity drafted and approved at last night’s GSU organizing committee (OC) meeting:
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Graduate Students United (GSU), University of Chicago
Resolution in Support of the Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Whereas graduate student instructors’ and teaching assistants’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions, and
Whereas access, fairness and workplace democracy are essential to the health and educational mission of the university, and
Whereas members of Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, continue to work under an expired contract while striving for a fair resolution on tuition waivers, and
Whereas GEO took a strike authorization vote that passed with nearly 87% approval while continuing to explore all available options to settle the contract with an administration which has been ordered by the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board to “cease and desist” from its violations of its contract and to bargain “in good faith concerning reductions in the tuition waivers of bargaining unit employees,”
Be it resolved that Graduate Students United (GSU) of the University of Chicago supports GEO in its struggle to negotiate a contract that addresses all of these issues with the administration at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Be it further resolved that GSU communicate such support to its members, including asking them to sign petitions and communicate their support for GEO and its demands to the University of Illinois President and Board of Trustees.
UChicago Graduate Students United - United Electrical Workers 