Coalition of Graduate Employees

On March 3rd, CGE met with the OSU administration for the last of three bargaining sessions for winter term. (Due to finals and schedules changes, we’ll not meet again until spring term.)

The administration gave us their final initial proposal, on fees. Essentially, it will do nothing next year, but in the 2011-2012 year, the administration is offering to roll the Technology ($105) and Registration ($11) fees into tuition along with all departmental fees. This proposal is positive; however, their overall fees proposals, when paired together, are regressive for everyone but engineers, since they earlier proposed also rescinding the $300 per-term fee differential. Specifically, under the administration’s combined fee proposals, grad employees in Engineering would see a net gain of about $240 per term (before tax), while everyone else would see a net loss of about $190 per term.

Fortunately, the administration appears to have no intention of cutting the funding behind the $300/person per-term, and seems rather to wish simply to allocate it in a different form than the fee differential. In the coming weeks, our goal will thus be to work with the administration’s team to determine a way to reallocate these funds in a way that overcomes the regressiveness of their proposals on fees. In other words, we want to come out of these negotiations with an agreement that benefits all grad employees at the cost of none.

This work cannot be CGE’s alone though, and we let the administration know that we expect them to come to the next meeting with a comprehensive economic proposal that indicates areas where they might be willing to make economic changes that benefit all grad employees in the end.

A second item on the agenda for this meeting was for CGE to respond to the administration’s proposal on Article 8 – Union Rights. Essentially, they originally proposed that a) OSU would stop deducting dues for Associate Members; b) CGE should change the language on our membership card authorizing dues deductions (though they would refuse to clearly tell us how); and c) members would have to re-sign union membership cards every time they leave and re-enter the bargaining unit.

On (a), we pointed out that we consider Associate Members union members and not just donors. They had apparently never considered that possibility. We also pointed out that as we understand ORS 292.055, state employees can authorize a deduction to a union regardless of bargaining unit status. They promised to take a look at the information we provided them and get back to us. On (b), we’re still waiting for them to actually clarify what’s wrong with the current language, and on (c), we suggested that if the underlying problem is the complexity of deducting so many different dues amounts from people – which is what they told us was the problem they are trying to solve with their proposals – we could just move everyone into the BU and that would really simplify everything. They weren’t too enthusiastic about that suggestion, but it does solve the problem they told us they have more effectively than their proposal.

The final significant thing to note about this bargaining session was that, unlike the previous session, the administration’s team was far more polite and respectful. This may be attributable to the large contingent of grad employees who showed up to observe the entire meeting, despite several lengthy caucuses. Regardless of the reason for the administration’s friendly behavior, our team certainly appreciates it and hopes they continue to behave that way for the duration of bargaining.

We’ll have another session early in spring term. When we schedule it, we’ll let you know when and where it will be.

The title of the post refers to this, in case you were wondering.

After about a year and a half, the 2008 $34 Summer Session Tuition Base case is closed, and the conclusion is a CGE victory in arbitration.  Under the arbitrator’s decision, OSU must reimburse all grad employees who were in the bargaining unit during Summer Session 2008 for the cost of the $34 charge.

The arbitrator’s written decision lays out that, because of the way the money from the summer session tuition base is used, the charge is really tuition and not a fee and is thus subject to remission under the tuition waiver guaranteed by our contract. Because arbitration hearings are generally precedent-setting, this reasoning may actually become a useful tool for CGE in fighting fees going forward. The decision itself is an interesting read, and I’d recommend it for anyone who has the time (it’s about as long as a regular academic conference paper).  You can download it below:

• Arbitrator’s decision on the 2008 $34 Summer Session Tuition Base case

There are about 130 or so grad employees who were in the BU during Summer Session 2008 who will be reimbursed under this decision.  Unfortunately, since OSU is not legally bound to apply contract protections to those not in the BU, the approximately 230 grad employees who were out of the BU during Summer Session 2008 and were forced to pay the $34 charge will not be reimbursed under this decision.  (This is just one more example why the OSU administration should agree to include all grad employees in the BU, as CGE has proposed in bargaining this year.)

If you are in the class of employees who will be reimbursed as a result of this decision, you will soon receive a check for $34, regardless of whether or not you are still at OSU.  Those in the affected class of employees should also expect to receive more detailed individual correspondence regarding this matter from CGE in the near future. If you believe you should be reimbursed and do not receive a check within the next few months, please contact CGE.

There’s change underfoot at OSU.

No, literally.  Along with wrappers, empty bottles, and a bunch of other garbage.  You might have noticed the buildings of the OSU campus becoming dirtier and dirtier lately.  That’s because, about a week before Christmas, the company that OSU contracts with for custodial service laid off about 1/3 of their workforce.

Why did they do that?  Because OSU cut the amount of money going to the company, GCA Services Group, by about 1/3, or $400,000.

Here’s how it went down:  Around December 18^th, the entire custodial staff – 94 people – were called to an all-staff meeting at 6 AM, right at shift change.  It was announced that new runs (a run is the regular route for custodial staff) were being created.  Based on seniority, custodial staff picked new runs.  When they hit 61, the projector went off and employees were told that anyone who had not received a new route was now laid off.

One week before Christmas.  One week.

Services Employees International Union Local 083, or SEIU, is the union that represents the custodial workers.  They have released a petition for faculty, staff and students at OSU to sign that requests that OSU President Ray and Provost Randhawa restore the $400,000 to the GCA contract.

CGE is urging our members, and all graduate employees, to sign the petition (you can contact your CGE Rep about this as well).  There is a certain minimum level of service that must be maintained if OSU is going to function (to say nothing of the level necessary to actually attract people or the level necessary to prevent flu or other outbreaks), and right now, the services being offered are far below that level.

Online petition here.

Fact sheet about this issue here.

Corvallis Gazette-Times story on this here.

Bargaining starts in 39 minutes! Let’s see what the university thinks about the future of graduate employees!

CGE has continued its proud progress into the 21st century by getting our own Twitter feed: @CGE6069. We’re planning to be active twittering during bargaining sessions, so if you can’t make it to a session, you can at least follow our feed to keep up with what’s going on.