• The university will increase its contribution to grad employee-only health care from 75% to 85% during the 9-month academic year. In addition, the university will contribute 50% towards grad employee-only coverage during the summer for any grad who was employed for at least one term during the preceding academic year and is enrolled (though not necessarily employed) for the following fall term. Summer insurance will be through the same Pacific Source plan we have during the 9-month academic year, but it will be optional.
• Additionally, though it was not achieved through negotiations and thus is not part of the new agreement, the university has increased the annual cap for health insurance to $250 thousand and the lifetime cap to $1 million. This is important for a few grads who, unfortunately, are approaching (or have already reached) the old caps of $100 thousand and $250 thousand.
• The university will increase the once-per-term differential payment from $250 to $300.
• Any grad appointed at a 1.0 FTE salary rate of less than $3164 will receive a 3% raise annually upon reappointment.
• We got fair-share! This is what we were holding out for. Getting this is a monumental win for the union.
• The administration agreed to language that would encourage departments to give appointments and work assignments in a timely manner. An approximation of the student fees a grad employee will have to pay, based on the previous year’s fees, will now have to be included with letters of appointment so grads are no longer blindsided by fees when they get to OSU.
• All grad employees are contractually guaranteed work space and all of the equipment necessary to perform their jobs.
• The union will have expanded rights, including more and better information from the university, university email access, and an expanded ability to orient incoming students to the union.
• More stuff, which you’ll find out about as the ratification process begins.

Like I said before, we see this contract as a major victory for grad employees and for the union. Not only is this the best economic contract we’ve ever had, but winning fair-share is huge because it ensures the union’s future financial solvency, which in turn will allow us to make even bigger strides in future negotiations.

Thanks to all of you who supported us through this long and grueling process. Without your backing at negotiations and your participation in actions, letter writing, etc., we could not have achieved what we have achieved in this contract.

Since the last blog post, we’ve had several sessions in which we’ve gone back and forth with the administration exchanging package proposals. For a while we were at somewhat of a deadlock, with us trying to convince the administration that our biggest concern right now is making increases in our take-home pay over the life of the new contract, and the administration sticking to their proposal of a $50 increase to the once-per-term differential and a 75% contribution to health insurance over the summer months for grad employees who worked for all three terms of the preceding academic year and were “reasonably assured” of having an assistantship for the following fall term.

One of our main concerns with that proposal was that it could have actually resulted in a net decrease in take-home pay for some grads, and we spent nearly an entire bargaining session trying to point out that fact to the administration. Finally, they got that message, and in the last session, they put forth a proposal that approaches being to our liking.

Specifically, their last proposal involved increasing the employer’s health care contribution to 85% during the academic year and offering a 50% health care contribution over the summer months to any grad who was on assistantship for at least one term in the preceding academic year. All of the complicated criteria a grad would have had to have met to qualify for a contribution to summer health care under administration’s old proposals were eliminated, and summer insurance was made optional. In addition, the new proposal maintained the administration’s offer to increase the once-per-term differential to $300. They also conceded on many important non-economic issues.

However, we still have two major issues with this new proposal. The first lies in the fact that it is a one-year proposal, or, in other words, all the money in this proposal comes in the first year, with no way to make up for inflation and the rising costs of fees and health care in the coming years. Second, and more important, is the fact that this proposal still does not contain a provision for fair-share.

Thus, in the coming bargaining sessions, we will seek to increase the administration’s financial offer, especially after the first year of the contract, and we will continue fighting for fair-share. We still will not settle on a contract without it.

The next session is scheduled for Thursday, August 14, from 9 am to 12 noon in the Westminster House (where the CGE office is, on the corner of 23rd and Monroe). After this session, the 150 day bargaining calendar will expire, which means that the parties can choose to enter into mediation if they feel it necessary to do so. However, both teams have expressed a desire to settle on a contract without mediation, so it is likely that more sessions will be scheduled after the 14th if we don’t reach a settlement on that date (which we probably won’t do).

Still, come out and observe the negotiations on the 14th, where we will likely respond to the administration’s latest proposal. It seems as though we are getting closer to the end of this ordeal, so we can use all the support we can get.

CGE and OSU will be meeting at the bargaining table from 9 AM to Noon on Thursday, August 14th at Westminster House (corner of 23rd & Monroe across from campus) and everyone is invited to observe. See you there!

Over 30 members of CGE crowded into the waiting area to deliver a message to Sabah Randhawa, the Provost and Executive Vice President for the University. Of course we just missed him, but we were assured that what we had to say would make it to his ears, and that message was this: Release the OSU bargaining team to bargain. A simple request for effective negotiations, yet this is proving very difficult to achieve.

For months the bargaining between the administration and graduate employees seems to have been stuck in neutral, a lot of noise and very little movement. And when it comes to the really big items, like fees, insurance and fair share, it appears that the administration’s bargaining team can’t actually negotiate over these items at the table without clearing it at the top. But the rub is that these are the items over which we must be the most efficient and cooperative, since they will determine the quality of life for graduate employees at OSU years to come and the time we have to get a contract is running out.

So hopefully our message to Sabah, to allow the administration’s team to make decisions on their own and to really engage with CGE in bargaining, will have been heard. And maybe, just maybe, this puppy will slip into first and start going somewhere.

Wednesday, July 30th from 9AM-Noon @ Westminster House (corner of 23rd & Monroe)

See you there!

Monday, July 28th from 9AM-Noon in MU 212

See you there!

What really distinguishes this payday, though, more than by any other feature, is the fact that it will be the last payday under our current contract, and thus, as we have not settled in negotiations for this contract’s successor, we, as of tomorrow, will be working without a contract.

Now, this should not cause any immediate and widespread panic among us grad assistants. Until we agree to a new contract, or until we reach impasse, go through mediation, and the administration imposes its terms upon us, the law states that, with respect to economic issues, the status quo must remain the status quo. In other words, until something forces a change, we will still receive a 75% contribution towards health care for nine months of the year, we will still receive the $250-per-term fee differential, and our salaries will still be held above a minimum of $2811/month at 1.0 FTE.

However, the expiration of the contract is, on a more abstract level, a cause of some concern. We have been bargaining for more than four months, and it was only a few weeks ago that the administration made what we considered a meaningful economic proposal. Until that time, the administration’s bargaining team was content to banter back and forth with us about what we considered extremely minor, non-contentious issues, issues that we chose to introduce first aiming to build harmony between the two bargaining teams.

And, even now that the administration’s team has made proposals that represent a modest degree of economic progress, those proposals are still a long way from what we envisioned as resulting from these negotiations: fair and meaningful increases to our take-home pay in each year of the new contract along with the provision of fair-share to keep the union strong.

Now, the concern I am talking about is not really over economic issues. In the end, we will settle on a good contract that includes fair-share and meaningful raises in some form or another. The source of concern, rather, lies in the road that, in the end, leads to that contract.

These negotiations have been much more difficult than they needed to be. Instead of trying in earnest to fashion a contract representing meaningful progress towards our goals, as well as towards the goal, presumably held mutually by both CGE and the administration, of crafting a competitive package to attract the best and brightest grad students to OSU, the administration has instead low-balled us all the way, beginning with their initial proposal which actually called for a $750-per-year step backwards (if you haven’t followed negotiations the whole way, read through the rest of the bargaining blog), and in this tactic lies a hint that the administration thinks of its grad assistants partly as a commodity whose price simply must be minimized.

And that, my friends, is frustrating.

So, on this payday, take your half-month’s worth of pay, and look forward to better paydays to come once a new contract is signed. However, as you cash that paycheck, the last one you will receive under the current contract, think about what this payday represents. Think about how hard-fought these negotiations have been, and think, to now, what that hard fighting has resulted in. In the end, we will win a good contract, but, to do so, there is a lot of hard fighting left to do beyond this very significant payday.

We tend to forget that until the advent of strong union representation, American workers had no protection from unscrupulous business owners. The Great Depression was a time of unchecked corporate power, a time when private contractors were hired to beat and kill union organizers, a time when maiming and death were common industrial occurrences. It was the spirit of egalitarianism inspired by adversity, and an increasingly educated workforce that spurred the solidarity needed to stand firm against corporate power. Once unions were allowed to organize, no longer could an employer use human beings as disposable chattel to be discarded once they were worn or broken. People could be assured of a living wage, of health care, and of the opportunity promised by our Founders.

We once again face many of the same things we faced at the advent of the Great Depression. Once again corporate power is unchecked in the name of profit; lending institutions ply vulnerable customers with loans they no longer earn enough to repay and foreclosures are rife. Once again many employees struggle to survive on a minimum wage which is below the federal poverty level, and families are thrust onto the streets. The new union busters are corporations which place profits above national security. Wal-Mart, in the chase for profit has banned all union organizing in its shops, and many of its employees are also food stamp recipients. The taxpayers are subsidizing Wal-Mart’s employees because the company refuses to act responsibly toward its workers.

The ability to unionize, organize, and demand corporate accountability is a public good that we must not lose. Half a century of prosperity has lulled us into forgetting the struggles of those who laid their lives on the line so we could live a good life. When workers have to go the emergency room because it is the only way they can get treatment, when working parents have to depend on food stamps to survive, when corporate greed has caused recession, it is our national security which suffers. It is all of us who must bear the burden and just a few of us who profit. The ability of workers to freely organize, and the willingness of all of us to support American workers and demand corporate accountability is a step toward a stronger America. Please join me in supporting our unions and workers.

Adele Kubein
Oregon State University
Department of Anthropology

CGE thanks Adele for allowing us to print this piece.