History

The Early Days of CGE

CGE’s roots reach back to the mid 1990’s, when grad student employees at OSU became fed up with the University’s refusal to provide them with health coverage. In the Fall term of 1995, OSU’s grad employees began a coordinated effort to persuade the University’s administration to provide them with some sort of health benefits. In the Spring term of 1998, after the university had rejected their appeals, the grads decided to join the movement begun at other schools around the nation and unite in an official labor union. Despite the University’s attempt to throw numerous legal obstacles in their path, the grads persevered, and in the Fall term of 1999, OSU’s grad employee population voted overwhelmingly to establish CGE.

As a result of this vote, CGE became recognized by the Oregon Employment Relations Board as the exclusive representative of graduate assistants at OSU, and the University is now bound by law to negotiate with us over all aspects of the salaries, benefits, and conditions of employment of OSU’s graduate assistants.

Partnership with AFT

Like many grad employee locals, CGE has joined up with a much larger labor union, The American Federation of Teachers (AFT). AFT has over 1.4 million members in over 3000 local affiliates nationwide, including over 11,000 members in 20 local affiliates in Oregon. Through our partnership with AFT, we receive incredibly valuable assistance in many forms, including skilled negotiators to help us bargain with OSU, representatives and organizers to help us serve and strengthen our membership, lobbyists and contacts within the state legislature to make help make sure our voice is heard by Oregon’s lawmakers, and monetary assistance to help us pay staffing and operational costs.

Our Contracts

CGE, with assistance from AFT, negotiated it’s first contract with OSU in the Spring term of 2001. This contract established the Union’s basic rights as well as those of grad employees, including a process through which grad employees can grieve wrongful actions taken by the University. The contract also laid out a number of basic working conditions required for grad employees, such as a limit on the number of hours of work per term the University may impose, and it outlines many benefits the University must provide to grad employees, including a minimum salary and a guaranteed tuition waiver. While this contract did not specifically include health coverage benefits, the University acknowledged in it the importance of these benefits and agreed to pay a $110-per-term “Recruitment and Retention Differential,” intended to help defray the cost of health coverage, to all grad assistants with an appointment of 0.2 FTE or more.

The next contract, finalized during the Summer of 2004, was a great success, as it included a provision stating that the University must maintain a health coverage plan for grad employees and contribute 75% of the single-person cost of this plan to all grad assistants with an appointment of at least 0.2 FTE. In addition, the 2004 contract mandated that the University must provide CGE with certain information about all grad assistants to help us to better represent them.

The 2004 contract was reopened in the Winter and Spring terms of 2006, and during these negotiations, CGE was able to take a significant step toward achieving one of our most important goals: the elimination of student fees for all graduate assistants. Specifically, the 2006 contract includes a provision stipulating that all grad assistants with an appointment of 0.2 FTE or greater will receive from the University a $250-per-term lump-sum payment. While not explicitly stated in the contract, the purpose of this payment is to help offset the burdensome cost of student fees. In addition, the 2006 contract includes a salary increase for certain grad assistants.

If you are curious about the details of any of our contracts, they can all be found in their entirety on our Contracts page.