A UNIFIED HOT BARGAINING SUMMER

Dear Members,

We’ve reached tentative agreements on some key articles to our contract! 

GSU-UE’s bargaining committee and the University reached a tentative agreement on an inclusive work environment, bargaining unit information, and bargaining unit titles. 

Our inclusive work environment article will protect accommodations for religious practices and lactations, as well as guarantee that graduate workers will be addressed by the correct pronouns and have access to bathrooms conforming to their needs. A notable victory within this article is winning a protected interim period to receive disability accommodations during the time period a graduate worker seeks medical documentation about their disability. We are confident that these interim protections will ease the burden and anxiety of anyone with a disabling condition trying to navigate healthcare obstacles. 

We have reached a tentative agreement on bargaining unit information, and we are close to reaching a tentative agreement on union rights! These articles will be the foundation of a strong and inclusive union. These two articles safeguard our access to lists of new members, our ability to communicate with membership, and our use of University facilities. The union rights article provides union stewards the means to help members file grievances and enforce the contract; it also protects our right to organize new members during orientation sessions. 

Our initial proposals on anti-harassment and bullying seek to expand existing University protections to many more categories of people that experience discrimination. It was very disappointing to see that the University prefers to keep redress for bullying and harassment, including sexual assault, through pre-existing channels. These are difficult experiences to talk about publicly, but specific examples of how the University’s procedures have failed to address the problems bring reality to the bargaining table. We urge you to bring forward your or your coworkers’ experience about discrimination, bullying, harassment or sexual assault to testify that the existing channels are unjust or powerless to get real recourse. You would have the option to have us tell your story anonymously or to tell it yourself in the bargaining room.

We’re continuing to fight for union security.

All of these victories will only be protected as long as our contract secures a union shop. This guarantees that all graduate workers have union membership, giving us the power and protections to fight for the benefits and protections we deserve. We’re not alone in this demand - more than 25,000 graduate workers across the country are also fighting for a united campus, which is a union campus! UE members from Northwestern, MIT, Johns Hopkins and Dartmouth joined yesterday’s session to express our unified effort to secure union shop agreements. The University’s open shop proposal seeks to create a divided campus, weakening our unity as graduate workers. We fought to ensure that the University didn’t reduce our union by denying 800 people their right to union protection, and we will not concede to the University’s attempt to exploit the high rate of turnover in our workplace and gradually diminish the strength of our union. Elaine Colligan testified yesterday morning: “[The University] can either become nationally known as a right-to-work, anti-labor institution which disregarded the strong mandate from graduate employees for a secure union to protect their employee rights, or it can do the right thing: recognize our union shop and prioritize teaching, learning and research on this campus.”

We’re only getting stronger.

Administration is responding to the unity we have shown over these issues. Our unified action is helping us make progress during bargaining sessions. The University has given us four more full bargaining dates in fall as a result of the pressure our collective organizing puts on them. Come to CAT on Tuesdays at 5:30pm at HPUC to learn more about how you can join. We can’t do it without you.