Details of university offer to GEO

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
11/15/09

After a six-hour negotiating session that ended Saturday night, the University of Illinois and the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) were able to reach agreement on all aspects of a contract that had been on the table during the past seven months of bargaining. However, the GEO then made new and additional demands to the university regarding tuition waivers, and the GEO strike committee authorized a strike over those 11th-hour demands. That decision by the GEO came despite the university's willingness to prohibit any changes to the University of Illinois Board of Trustees general rules that would affect GEO members' tuition waivers without first bargaining such changes with the union. The GEO strike committee has chosen to strike over an issue that historically has never been a source of contention between the union and management, and about which there is no indication would be a source of contention in the future.

For the more than 2,600 graduate and teaching assistants represented by the GEO, this regressive move by the GEO bargaining team and the call to strike on Monday, Nov. 16, at 8 a.m. is a decision to reject the following:

• Increases to the minimum stipend for 50 percent appointments (20 hr/wk, nine mo/yr):
  • $13,840 (year one, increased from current minimum of $13,430, retroactive to August 2009)
  • $14,250 (year two)
  • $14,820 (year three)
• Increases to the student health insurance fee subsidy:
  • 65 percent (year one, increased from the current 50 percent subsidy)
  • 75 percent (year two)
  • 75 percent (year three)
• The creation of a parental accommodation period following the birth or initial adoption of a child
• Amendments to the grievance language and other non-economic language amendments
• Protection against any changes to the Board of Trustee tuition waiver policy for graduate assistants and the right to bargain over any changes to that policy.*

Included within the university's final offer Saturday was an agreement to drop proposals that would have created contract language that recognized the university's right to furlough graduate assistants and limit the GEO's ability to engage in impact bargaining during the term of the agreement. The university has never intended to furlough graduate assistants. This has been reflected in all of the university's contract proposals, including its initial proposal made in August. The university agreed Saturday to drop any mention of furloughs from the proposed new contract.

Saturday's session was the 19th between the parties. Before reaching the final offer it extended on Saturday, the university made approximately two dozen separate offers throughout the bargaining process.

Faculty and non-GEO staff are expected to perform their job duties as usual.  Students who have paid tuition have reason to expect that classes will take place as usual, and it is the university's intention to honor that promise. If there are interruptions, make-up arrangements must be made to ensure that instructional objectives are delivered as promised. Teaching assistants and graduate assistants who are in the bargaining unit represented by the GEO can choose to work or choose to strike, since the collective bargaining agreement has expired. If they choose to work, they will be paid as usual.  As with any union-initiated strike action, employees who elect not to work as assigned cannot be paid.

The administration values the contributions graduate students make to the university, and the campus competes nationally and internationally to attract and retain the best and brightest students.

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* During the term of this agreement, the university will bargain the impact of any change by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois to the graduate assistant tuition waiver policy set forth in Article IV, Section 5, of the General Rules Concerning University Organization and Procedures.  The University acknowledges that the term "graduate assistant" as used in Article IV, Section 5, of the General Rules includes Teaching Assistants.

For more information, call Robin Kaler, associate chancellor for public affairs, 217-840-6527.