As you may know, the University has recently called for state-sponsored mediation in bargaining, although CGE’s only remaining demands are to retain our $300 per term lump sum differential and increase the basement salary for graduate employees to the figure our own Graduate School recommends.

While we believe our proposals are reasonable and just, OSU won’t budge. And with its $40 million surplus, the University has finally admitted in bargaining that its refusal to boost the conditions of graduate employees even marginally is not an affordability issue. Investment in graduate employees is simply not a priority.

Let’s show we’re able and willing to mobilize for what we deserve. Rally in support of a fair contract.

• When: Wednesday September 8, 12:30 PM
• Where: Start on the steps of the MU Quad, then march to Kerr
• Bring: Your good-looking CGE gear, your signs, your voices, your friends

This rally is for EVERYONE! Invite friends, family, students, faculty, community members and anyone else who supports  decent compensation for the people who power Orange.

By 10:30, the time our 14^th bargaining session with the OSU administration was scheduled to start, at least 70 people were packed into the MU Council Room, both to participate in the negotiations and to observe.  These were not all grad employees, either: 10 or 12 representatives of ASOSU, the student government here, also attended, wielding signs supporting CGE and our proposals.  With this throng engulfing the bargaining table on all sides, one was almost compelled to pity the OSU administration’s bargaining team, about to walk into these unfriendly surroundings to play their role as nemesis, their backs to be against the wall both figuratively and literally.  It was they, however, who put themselves in this position with their deplorable proposals and their often contemptible approach to bargaining.

Predictably, the administration immediately tried to escape bargaining in these surroundings.  Their lead negotiator, upon entering the room and without even sitting down, stated that unless enough of the observers left to meet the room’s capacity limit (40 people), they would not bargain.  Unfortunately for the administration, fate and our observers were against them: our friends from ASOSU had already cleared out a bigger room in the MU, and we moved there to commence bargaining.

In the new room, the administration did their best to avoid the crowd by positioning themselves with their backs to the audience and speaking quietly so as to be audible only to our bargaining team and the nearest observers.  Finally situated in the most comfortable position we would permit them, the administration set about offering us what they called a “supposal”—a “hypothetical” offer that they, as their lead negotiator explained, wouldn’t consider themselves to have made if we ended up in mediation.

Their supposal addressed both fees and stipend.  On fees, they “supposed” reducing the differential by the sum of the Technology and Registration Fees, which would be rolled into tuition along with the Engineering Resource Fee.  This move would bring the differential down from its current value of $300 per term to $184 per term, and given that less tax would be deducted from the differential, this would actually be a slight gain for everyone.  Under their supposal, other small fees, such as the Summer Session Tuition Base, which CGE has grieved several times and once successfully brought to arbitration, would be rolled into tuition.  As the result of this “hypothetical” movement on their part, individual grad employees would see no change in the overall cost of fees, with the reduced tax deduction from the differential and next year’s fee increase balancing each other out, and Engineers would see the additional benefit of having the Engineering Resource Fee rolled into tuition.  CGE would also be in a good position to continue to reduce the overall burden of fees, with the differential still in place for all grad employees and several fees rolled into tuition.

Unfortunately, the university continued their change of heart on the minimum stipend, refusing now to increase it even after proposing to do so in writing earlier in bargaining.  Instead, they “supposed” giving a 4% raise to everyone earning below the Graduate School’s recommended minimum of $3543/month at 1.0 FTE, but only upon reappointment.  In other words, given that new a grad employee could still start out being paid our current contractual minimum of $2811/month at 1.0 FTE for an entire year, that grad employee would have to remain on assistantship for seven years to reach the Graduate School’s recommended minimum under the administration’s supposal.

The administration is adamant about leaving the contractual minimum stipend unchanged.  Their outward rationale for this insistence is salary compression.  Specifically, they’ve claimed that raising the minimum stipend to the Graduate School’s recommendation would cause some grad employees to be paid more than some instructors, especially in the College of Liberal Arts.  This is true for a very small number of people, since a few of the worst paid instructors in CLA make about $3333/month at 1.0 FTE.  However, the administration also refused to acknowledge that a number does exist between the current contractual minimum and the Graduate School’s recommendation that would not result in salary compression.  It thus appears that the administration’s real motivation behind refusing to raise the minimum stipend is to ensure that incoming graduate employees can continue to serve as a cheap alternative even to instructors, especially in CLA.

Unfortunately, the current contractual minimum has been in place since 2006, and in the time since that minimum was enacted, the cost of living here in Corvallis has gone up significantly.  Indeed, since that time, the Graduate School’s recommended minimum has increased over $400/month at 1.0 FTE.  Simply put, it is time that we stop paying incoming grads with wages that were poor even in 2006.  All of the Department Chairs, Program Directors, Grad Coordinators, and School Directors we’ve talked to—the collection of whom represents a majority of the departments in the College of Liberal Arts as well as departments across other colleges, even those departments that pay their instructors very poorly—support our efforts to raise the minimum stipend.

For these reasons, our bargaining team responded to the administration’s supposal by suggesting that we meet one more time to work to find a number for the minimum stipend that avoids salary compression but also brings the worst paid grad employees’ wages to a more appropriate level for the second decade of the 21^st century.  We also let them know that we were pleased to see movement on their part on the fee differential that meaningfully accounted for concerns we voiced about their previous proposals on fees, but we noted we could not reach any agreement on fees outside the context of an entire economic package.

The administration was not interested in continuing to negotiate, however, and informed us that they will request state-sponsored mediation.  Thus, our next bargaining session will likely occur with the parties in separate rooms and a mediator shuffling between us seeking to help us reach an agreement.  We are optimistic about mediation because we believe the mediator will see through the administration’s questionable arguments and will serve as a disinterested voice of reason to the administration.

The support we’ve received from grad employees and others throughout negotiations, especially the unprecedented turnout at this last session, is also heartening and strengthens our conviction that our members will do what it takes to impel the administration to reach a fair agreement with us.  While we are getting closer to that agreement, we all still have work to do, and our bargaining team will need the rest of the membership to continue their impressive support in the weeks ahead. So, be on the lookout for ways you can continue to help as we push to conclude these negotiations, which are now headed into mediation.

The CGE bargaining team met with OSU for what we thought might be the last time this past Tuesday, August 10^th.  We were scheduled to present a package proposal. From communication we had received the previous session, we thought that the administration’s team might be ready to call for a state mediator to step in after this past session, even though the CGE team thought we were still making progress.  As it turned out, we have another session scheduled for 10:30 AM on August 23^rd in the Memorial Union.

Now… what happened this past Tuesday?  In simple terms, we presented a proposal to their team (that can be found here), they objected, we talked for a bit, they caucused and then told us they were willing to meet one more time before mediation.

Our proposal is very simple compared to both our previous proposal and their last proposal (in no small part due to the fact that we dropped a request for half a million in new compensation towards health insurance premiums – which, by the way, would have still left us behind the grad employees at UO).  In addition to non-economic language we’ve basically agreed on, we proposed to increase the minimum stipend to what the graduate school recommends (found here) and to leave the $300/term in fee relief unchanged.  This would cut everyone’s fee bill by $100/term (except engineers, who would see an additional $430 in their pockets from the eliminated engineering resource fee), and would put an average of $100 more per month in post-tax stipend in the pocket of the average grad employee who currently makes less than our proposed minimum.

In short, it would end the egregious engineering fee, help everyone a little bit and those at the bottom a bit more.

In the long run, we hope to move more fees into tuition, as the differential is a very inefficient way to pay for fees.  However, the university has refused to waive enough in fees to make changing the differential an option for grads.

One of the university’s objections to increasing the minimum stipend was revealed a bit more when they told us both that some Deans don’t want the minimum stipend increased and that increasing it too far would make the pay rate for GTAs higher than that of instructors in the College of Liberal Arts. [Update 8/17/10:  We have been told by someone in the College of Liberal Arts that this is not true.]  Their team suggested there was a number between our proposed number ($3543/month at 1.0 FTE) and the current minimum ($2811/month at 1.0 FTE) that would work.  We hope their next proposal reflects that middle ground in some fashion, but so far comments made at one session by the university appear to have little bearing on their behavior during future sessions.

Check below the fold for a lot more of the back-and-forth of the session.

(Continue reading...)

If you’ve read about the previous bargaining session, you know that we were pretty surprised to find out that the university couldn’t get a financial proposal together in five weeks.  On Friday, July 30^th, we met with them again to hear their revamped financial proposals that they’d had seven weeks to get ready.  It made for interesting reading.  (You can download their July 30th proposal here, along with copies of other proposals that have been made during bargaining.)

For the first time, the university brought numbers to the table – a cost estimate to back up their proposal.  Let’s walk through the various parts.

1.  Fees.  The university proposed to eliminate the $300/term differential and replace it with a $120 differential with three caveats:  That no incoming grads will get the $120, that grads in the MBA program and College of Engineering won’t get it, and that the university refused to confirm or deny that non-BU employees (if your dues are $10/month, that’s you) will be getting ANY fee relief in the coming year.  The State Board of Higher Education has also voted to include the Technology, Registration and Programmatic Fees in with tuition, which means everyone’s fee bill will be about $450 next year before fee relief.  Note that this means CGE was not consulted, but that OSU is attempting to get grad employees to pay for this decision.

2.  Salary. Despite both sides previously proposing that the minimum stipend be increased to match what the Graduate School recommends, the university had withdrawn that proposal.  They claimed that it would create pay equity issues with instructors.  They also claimed it would cost more than we had estimated, but refused to document that claim.  Instead, they are proposing that anyone who makes below the Grad School’s recommendation receive a one-time 5% increase in salary at the beginning of their second year.  This increase won’t even come close to bringing people up to the grad school’s recommended minimum.

The university is continuing to propose no change to health insurance.

Before even getting into the costs and benefits of their proposal, the bargaining team can’t agree to something that makes the fee situation worse for the majority of graduate employees or something that creates inequality among new and returning students as well as between students in different programs.

Looking at the university’s cost estimate, the picture gets even less palatable.  According to their estimate, they will be spending $161,000 more on graduate employees overall under their proposal – but 95% of that, or about $153,000, will be spent on graduate employees in the College of Engineering.  This is a third reason we can’t agree to their proposal.

The fourth reason is that they’re either not very good at math or simply trying to obscure the true cost to graduate employees.  In their cost estimate, they include the 2010-2011 costs for eliminating the $300 differential, waiving some fees, and the $120 differential.  However, they also include the cost of the 5% one-time increase to salary they propose.  Unfortunately, that increase occurs in Fall 2011, i.e. in a different year.  If that’s properly accounted for, then the university’s proposal is an immediate $200,000 cut to graduate employee compensation – and things only get worse in subsequent years as the $120 fee relief differential is phased out. So it’s not actually a $160,000 increase, but a decrease in graduate employee compensation.

Financially, the bottom line is that the university’s proposal is substantially regressive and increases inequality among graduate employees.  To a certain extent, we understand why:  The State Board of Higher Education voted to roll certain fees into tuition + the university’s desire not to invest in graduate employees + the administration trying to make it appear that no graduate employee loses money.  The combination of those things explains a lot about why the university’s proposal is structured as it is, but it is no more acceptable because of that.  Equally unacceptable is asking grad employees to cover the cost of rolling in programmatic resource fees that never should have been separated in the first place.

We’re in the process of scheduling another session that will either be on August 10^th or August 23^rd.  It might be the last session before we enter into mediation.

One thing that is becoming clear is that OSU faculty and staff have no idea what the university is proposing.  From the few contacts with faculty the bargaining team has had, it’s just as clear that faculty and staff disagree with the idea of making it harder for them to recruit and retain graduate employees.  If you have the time, please let your adviser and department head know what OSU is proposing to do (again, you can find their July 30th proposal here) and encourage them to voice their opinion to their Dean or to the university’s bargaining team.

Tuesday afternoon, about 35 CGE members took a few minutes to deliver a letter to OSU President Ed Ray’s office.  That letter was the culmination of a week’s worth of work by volunteers delivering almost 900 letters to faculty members here on campus.  The letter makes clear that we need to see progress on fees if we are to wrap up bargaining, and encourages faculty to weigh in on this issue, because the bargaining team believes that moving backwards on fees will make it harder for faculty to recruit and retain talented graduate students.

Tomorrow, July 30th, at 2 PM in the Memorial Union Council Room, the bargaining team will be meeting with OSU.

The university has promised us they will bring an economic proposal that takes into account the importance we place on fees, and has indicated they will have guests present from the Finance and Administration unit.

We hope to see as many of you there as possible.  We’re getting very close to the end of bargaining now, and what happens on Friday will probably play a large role in determining what the overall outcome of bargaining looks like.  Please join us!