CGE met with the university for the ninth bargaining session last Friday, June 11th, at 2 PM in the Memorial Union Council Room.

At the end of the previous session, the university’s team had told us to ‘tell us what you need,’ so our proposal was designed to do just that.

Article 12 – Waivers

The State Board of Higher Education, we understand, has voted to eliminate the Registration, Technology and Engineering fees starting next year.  In addition to that, CGE proposed that the Health and Building fees, along with any remaining program-specific fees, be rolled in to tuition.  If this happens, the team is OK with the university’s proposal to eliminate the $300/term in fee relief. However, without all of the above fees disappearing, the loss of the $300 would result in a net loss to grads on fees.  The membership has made clear on several occasions that fee relief is the most important thing for CGE to work on.

When CGE proposed fee relief, the university’s response was to barely acknowledge that we had proposed it and move on quickly.  It’s likely this is going to be a major point of contention and that the university simply didn’t want to engage with 25 observers in the room.

Article 11 – Salary

One point of agreement between CGE and the university has been the worthiness of increasing the minimum salary.  CGE’s initial proposal contained an immediate minimum salary increase that the university has since proposed as well.  In addition, CGE proposed an additional increase to the minimum that would take effect for the 2011-2012 year. Our best guess is that the first minimum increase would affect the bottom 20%, and that the second could affect the bottom third.  Individuals in the Colleges of Liberal Arts and Science would be the most affected.

Article 11 – Workload

In general, CGE is pursuing better contract language around workload limits, so that it is less likely for grads, especially GTAs, to be overworked.  We’re also hoping to provide increased contract protections for what happens when grads do exceed their hours.  The CGE team and the university’s team have gone back and forth about this at some length during bargaining, and we feel we’re getting pretty close to an agreement.  This doc file has a little more info about what we’re proposing and why.

Article 28 – Insurance

CGE proposed that any grad who is employed have 100% of their monthly premium covered, and that grads who take the summer insurance option have 85% of the monthly premium covered, up from the current 85% employed and 50% summer unemployed coverage.  The university’s only response to this was to suggest that since they increased premium coverage two years ago, they could not do so again so soon.

Article 9

This goes on for a bit, so bear with me: The university had been telling us for a few sessions that our proposals around advertising certain open GTA positions were unworkable, and had suggested multiple times that we should be content with seeing the positions advertised in OSU Today.  We had proposed just that, only to be told that no one in the university had the authority to compel departments to send job postings to OSU Today by the same person who told us it would be a good idea.  Then the university, as part of a proposal to us, proposed that HR would send notice once per year to units that they should send job postings to OSU Today.  So at the most recent session, CGE proposed just that – we even went so far as to take the language verbatim from their previous proposal and insert into our own.

Predictably, the university said they couldn’t agree to it. Graciously, they allowed that they made a mistake when proposing that language in the first place.

One thing that was different from previous sessions was that the university chose not to play the “we have no money” card.  While CGE is aware of the state economic forecast and of the overall OSU budget, we are also aware OSU is investing at least $11 million in new infrastructure and potentially a few million more in faculty salaries; because of the new investments, we know the financial situation is more complicated than it might first appear.

Overall, the university had asked us what grads needed, so the CGE team crafted a proposal to answer that question.  When we presented it, the response we were given was a mix of “we won’t” and “we can’t,” with no significant explanation given for either answer.  It’s again disappointing, but not surprising.

The administration team let us know that they would counter our proposal with a complete package at the next session on Friday, June 18, from 2-4:00 pm in the Westminster House.  Their behavior at this past meeting suggested that they plan to do very little to address the needs we brought forth there.  In particular, their coming counterproposal will likely leave in place the ~$185 net loss of fee relief for most grads. The CGE bargaining team will make it clear that we (and you) won’t agree to a contract that wipes out fee relief, but we’ll be much more credible in doing so if you show up to support us, so if you’re around for the summer, please come out to Westminster on Friday.

After a three-week hiatus, CGE met with the university’s bargaining team to hear them present a comprehensive proposal.  This was the first time the university had made a comprehensive proposal.

Incidentally, this followed on the heels of an open letter in the Barometer from CGE supporters that include the classified staff, SEIU, and ASOSU, the student government, as well as CGE members handing out fliers to OSU faculty and staff about bargaining the day before.

Without mincing words, the university’s proposal was completely unacceptable to the bargaining team.  The essential parts of their proposal are as follows:  Cutting the $300/term in fee relief, no change to health insurance, and an increase in the minimum salary to match the Graduate School’s recommended minimum.  (The minimum increase is take from CGE’s initial proposal.)

As well, the university let us know that the Oregon University System is rolling the Technology and Registration fees into tuition starting next year, along with the Engineering Fee.  This is a huge positive change for engineers, and will result in about $116/term less in fees for all graduate employees.  However, this is something that is happening outside of bargaining.  It was not actually part of the university’s proposal.

On the whole, the university’s first comprehensive proposal is very regressive for almost everyone.  For people at the bottom, the increase in salary could be a good thing depending on FTE; many grads in the College of Engineering are paid well and will see a huge cut in their fees.  However, for the vast majority of graduate employees, the university’s proposal would result in a significant cut.  The CGE bargaining team’s initial estimate is that it would be a cut of about $800,000 per year across all graduate employees.

On top of the highly regressive proposal, the university’s team managed to contradict themselves multiple times:

When they first presented their proposal, they told CGE that the increases they proposed were designed to offset the cut in the $300; however, after we asked them about it again, they told us it was never designed to totally offset the cuts.  This is in addition to having been clearly told at the beginning of bargaining that the intent of the OSU proposal was to keep the amount of money going to graduate employees the same, but to redistribute it away from fee relief.

The second contradiction occurred when OSU’s lead negotiator first stated that we needed to move quickly, and that they could bring in relevant university officials to answer questions about how specific proposals would impact different units as a way to help move bargaining along; just a few minutes later, we were told that conversations take time, and that we needed to understand that.

The third contradiction was when the university’s team told the CGE team that it was necessary for grads to take cuts in almost the same breath that they told us that some departments are giving 4% raises to their grads.

The fourth contradiction came when the CGE team asked the university to bring the cost estimates they had done and the university refused on the grounds that both sides were working from the same data.  Later in the session, the university’s team told the CGE team that the numbers had changed from those we had shown the university at the beginning of bargaining – i.e. those same numbers the university claimed they were using and that they claimed would be good enough for CGE to use.

It appears that the university’s team is willing to say whatever they think will help them without regard to the truth or consistency with previous statements.  This lack of respect shown the CGE bargaining team has been disappointing, if not surprising.

The CGE team will look at the proposal provided by the university and have a response prepared for the next bargaining session, which is on Friday, June 11^th at 2 PM in the Memorial Union Council Room.

Last Friday’s bargaining session was one of those sessions that didn’t look like much but might turn out to be important.  We continued discussing announcements of grad assistant job openings and workload issues, and we delved briefly into the more technical dues deduction procedure.  The CGE bargaining team left the session feeling that the discussion was substantive and encouraging overall.

Article 9 – Job Opening Announcements

The CGE bargaining team came to the table with a proposal on advertising (some) open grad assistant positions that was substantially different than our previous proposals.  In fact, we basically wrote down what the employer had been suggesting we do for the past two sessions: that the 30 or so positions not housed in academic units have job announcement info sent to OSU Today, the daily email that goes out all over campus.

Did they agree to their own idea?  No, of course not.  Instead, they claimed that no one at the university has the authority to require hiring units send position announcements to OSU Today and instead suggested that the contract simply “recommend” non-academic employing departments post grad assistant job openings in OSU Today.

From the bargaining team’s perspective, a contract is not the place to put language like “recommended.”  It is the place for language like “required.”  So we’re sticking to that.  And, after a lengthy discussion about this and an open expression of exasperation at the OSU bargaining team’s apparent unwillingness to engage the CGE bargaining team on this issue in a meaningful way, OSU made what appeared to be a sincere commitment to look into the feasibility of this.  We will see whether anything meaningful comes of that commitment.

Article 11 – Workload

The two bargaining teams had some discussion on the proposal made by CGE at the previous session, and the CGE bargaining team continued to make what we think is a compelling case for reasonable restrictions on the number of hours grad employees can be required to work during the 11-week academic term.  Unfortunately, it appeared that the OSU team hadn’t done enough work in the two weeks since the previous session to actually be able to reach any decisions on anything.  However, they did agree to come back with another proposal on this issue at a future session.

If you’re getting the sense that not much happened during this session, you might be right.  At this point, it certainly appears that OSU’s bargaining team is simply not doing the requisite work they need to do to make progress in bargaining.  They, of course, deny this, and so far, we’re taking them at their word.  During this session, the CGE team noticed signs that OSU may be nearing a point where they can agree on some of the issues we’ve been discussing, but we have been optimistic about this in the past with nothing to show for it.  The next few sessions, as we try to wrap up non-economic items and move into economics, should prove to be telling.

We’ll see you at the next session, on Monday, May 17^th, at 1 PM in the Westminster House, where the CGE offices are located.

Here’s what CGE has going on for the rest of the term:

• Bargaining Session: Friday, May 7th, 2-4 PM, MU Council Room
• Rep Meeting: Thursday, May 13th, 6 PM, Woodstock’s Pizza
• Bargaining Session: Monday, May 17th, 1-3 PM, Westminster House
• Association of Graduate Employee Locals Spring Conference: May 20th-23rd, Madison, Wisconsin
• CGE’s 10th Anniversary BBQ: Saturday, May 22nd, 1 PM, Maple Grove Shelter
• Bargaining Session: Friday, May 28th, 2-4 PM, MU Council Room
• Bargaining Session: Friday June 4th, 2-4:00 at Westminster House
• Bargaining Session: Friday June 11th, 2-4:00 in the MU Council Room

It’s a busy term, but we hope to see you at a few events!

CGE held the fifth bargaining session with OSU on Monday, April 26^th, 2010, at 1 PM in the Westminster House.  (It was on pretty short notice, in case you’re wondering why you didn’t hear much about it.)  On the agenda were Article 9 – Appointments, and Article 11 – Workload.

One quick note, before going into detail about the session:  The bargaining team has tried pretty hard to get as far as we can without asking the membership to do more than come observe sessions.  It became pretty apparent during the session that this isn’t working anymore, as the OSU team isn’t putting any real effort into coming up with solutions.  They seem to be more interested in stalling.  Expect to hear more from your Rep or the bargaining team about what you can do to work for a swift resolution and a good contract in the near future.

Article 9

There were no formal proposals exchanged; instead, OSU brought a guest to talk about OSU’s hiring practices as is and the teams had an hour-long discussion.  The discussion centered around CGE’s proposal to require that about 30 positions, all outside academic departments, be posted online when units are seeking to fill those positions.  We thought the solution would be pretty straight-forward. Instead, we were told that it would be a huge amount of work no matter how we did it.  Either that or we could do nothing, or accept positions being posted in a place that’s not accessible to incoming grads and that many current grads have not heard of.  Basically, we heard the words “no” and “can’t” a lot.

In the end, we agreed to continue the discussion later, and we’re going to dig in and do some research on how to make this work.  It’s somewhat inexplicable to the bargaining team that OSU would dig their heels in so much on this; one can only imagine the fit they would have thrown if we’d made more than a modest proposal.

Article 11

At the end of the previous session, OSU had agreed to give us a proposal on Article 11.  During that session, we’d had a productive discussion that culminated in the idea of a cap of 15% of one’s hours during any given week and 85% of one’s hours during the term.  It seemed reasonable to expect OSU to make a proposal along those lines – remember, the point is to give graduate employees more tools in those cases where people are being overworked, as well as help insure that grads aren’t asked to work 13 weeks’ worth of hours in 11 weeks, and we thought we had made that clear during the discussion.  Instead, OSU’s proposed solution to the problem of hour distribution did not mention anything we had discussed.  It was a single sentence that was nothing more than your typical, unenforceable contract language.  Rather than argue with OSU about the relative uselessness of their language and how they ever could have thought proposing such language would have been acceptable, we simply ignored it and presented our own.  They agreed to take our proposal and check with department heads and deans to see if it would be workable, and that’s where the session ended.

The next session is scheduled for Friday, May 7^th, in the Memorial Union, and starts at 2 PM.  As mentioned at the top of the post, we’ve hit the point where nice words aren’t getting us very far, so expect to start hearing from the bargaining team and your Reps soon about more actively supporting the bargaining team.