Coalition of Graduate Employees

Approximately 40% of graduate employees at Oregon State University are not currently covered by the collective bargaining agreement between the university and the Coalition of Graduate Employees (CGE). This means they are not guaranteed the same benefits as other graduate employees, nor do they have the same rights as workers. This year 64% of them signed authorization cards saying they wished to be represented by CGE. The simplest way to acknowledge the will of the democratic majority is for OSU President Ed Ray to voluntarily recognize their choice for CGE to be their legal representative. Unfortunately President Ray has so far declined to recognize CGE as the union for all graduate employees and has refused even to meet with CGE on the issue. Show your support for hardworking graduate employees by signing this petition to encourage President Ray to voluntarily recognize.

Dear campus community:

Recently, you may have seen articles in the Barometer, the Gazette-Times or the Oregonian regarding the efforts of the Coalition of Graduate Employees to represent all graduate employees at OSU.

CGE has been the labor union representing most graduate employees at OSU since 1999. We negotiate collective bargaining agreements that have greatly improved the working conditions of graduate employees over the last ten years. Graduate employees now have health insurance coverage, a guaranteed tuition waiver for those working more than a few hours a week, and workload protections. Most importantly, CGE gives graduate employees a voice in their working conditions and in how university decisions are made that affect us.

CGE does not represent any undergraduates, even if they are working as paid teaching assistants (or residence hall assistants). We also do not represent any Faculty Research Assistants. Our representation is exclusively graduate employees — graduate students who receive a monthly paycheck from OSU.

But CGE doesn’t represent all graduate employees. Of the approximately 1600 graduate employees on campus, close to 800 are excluded from union representation. These excluded workers are predominantly graduate research assistants, not graduate teaching assistants.

Many of these unrepresented workers desire the benefits of contract protection: the guarantee of health insurance, the protection of a grievance process and a formal non-discrimination clause, and a say in the terms of the contract through the collective bargaining process. What CGE recently delivered to the state Employment Relations Board were several hundred cards signed by a decisive majority of these non-represented workers, authorizing CGE to be the labor union representing them.

If you’re a graduate employee on campus, you’ve no doubt seen us — probably even more than once — as we worked to gauge support and collect authorization cards. Of utmost importance to us was that all workers understood the implications of union representation. We spoke with 90 percent of them, even if it sometimes meant coming back to offices time and time again. The majority of unrepresented workers have spoken and chosen CGE as their union.

What does this mean for the rest of OSU? Graduate employees will continue to study hard and work hard. But since our working conditions are the learning conditions for the undergraduate students, protection of our rights as employees allows us to focus on providing excellent education. Protection of our rights allows us to focus on providing the quality labor that helps fuel the success of research at OSU. Protection of our rights will allow OSU to continue to grow, to attract top students and strive for excellence.

We all want OSU to be the best place to work, study and learn. All graduate employees should be treated equally. It’s about fairness.

Please support your local graduate employee who has chosen union representation and wants to be recognized as a worker in service to this university that we all call home!

In Solidarity,

Mindy Crandall

President, CGE, AFT Local 6069
Ph.D. Student in
Applied Economics

We encourage you to demonstrate your support for the valuable work that graduate employees do for OSU by calling President Ray (541 737 4133) and urging him to voluntarily recognize the choice unrepresented grad workers have have already made to be represented by CGE.

Today, representatives from CGE and AFT-Oregon delivered our petition, and stack of authorization cards, to the Employment Relations Board in Salem!

This is the next step in our goal of ensuring that ALL graduate employees have the same rights – that we’re all protected by the same contract – that we’re all told our work is valuable and of service to the university.

Each card represents a conversation, a coffee meeting, an email, a phone call, an office visit, a home visit, an outreach by members of the Organizing Committee to contact all non-represented employees and ask them: Do you want to be represented by CGE?

A majority said yes. And today, we asked the state to recognize ALL graduate employees of Oregon State University as workers covered by our contract.

Great work, everyone – members, volunteers, organizers, Organizing Committee members – EVERYONE!

Mindy Crandall, President, CGE

In discussions with my fellow international graduate students, we have several concerns regarding our employment conditions. We also recognize that the Coalition of Graduate Employees [CGE] is helpful for us in addressing these issues.

General Life Insecurity: The biggest concern most international graduate employees have is whether we will be able to continue receiving funding throughout our degree-pursuit years at OSU. For those of us with limited support from family and our cultures of origin, financial insecurity dominates most of our life choices. Moreover, we are not eligible for any other alternatives, such as applying for student loans or US national fellowships. Therefore, when facing the problem of balance between work and personal life, we tend to comply with advisors to ensure funding. This issue is further complicated by limited opportunities when searching for affordable housing, and acculturation processes.

CGE’s contract covers all components of a graduate employee’s work relationship. The contract gives set workload caps so international graduates can’t be made to work 24/7, protects against discrimination, and instructs the university to give all employees advanced notice if they will not have funding in the future so graduate students are not caught off guard.

Housing opportunities: Some of us have difficulties when looking for off-campus places to stay since the university’s enrollment has increased recently and the rental expense has reflected these increases as well. We are more likely to settle down at less preferable places because we think we will only stay in Corvallis for around five years and have no back-up support compared to our hometowns.

CGE is negotiating a new contract right now to improve graduate employee salaries and lower fees and other costs to offset the increased cost of living in Corvallis. Better pay will give international graduate employees more financial security.

Acculturation barriers: We have more difficulties in handling all our studies, research and personal lives on top of language barriers. We have less understanding and exposure to American cultures since most of us are occupied by school work. Moreover, some of us might offend the laws accidentally and do not know where to search for help. Some of us might feel isolated and depressed due to having less social support available. Some of us might try to attend events on or around campus but still find it hard to feel accepted in the society.

CGE is more than just a labor union; it helps graduates get out of their normal department circles and meet their fellow grads all over campus. CGE hosts several social events during the year and is always looking for volunteers to come up with new ideas for fun times. If you go to cge6069.org, you can join the social email list. CGE representatives are always willing to meet with international graduates who are struggling to understand OSU polices.

In representing and working for the whole body of OSU graduate employees, CGE is particularly important for us as international graduate employees. Currently there is no single organization on campus working specifically for international graduate employees. Moreover, compared to domestic graduate students, we are more likely to be under-funded due to fellowship restrictions or other academic barriers. Given language barriers, international graduate employees tend to be working as graduate research assistants (GRAs) rather than teaching assistants, and many might prefer to be GRAs. The ongoing CGE campaign is important to recognize both GRAs’ and international graduate employees’ contributions to the university.

We hope that with the support from CGE, more international graduate students can be employed by the university and bring the benefits of cultural diversity to the university education. By uniting graduate employees from various countries, CGE can be a great example of diversity on the OSU campus and can cultivate a more open research environment, which will in return increase OSU’s reputation around the world. As a result, more outstanding international scholars will be attracted to OSU, and there will be greater potential for cross-cultural collaborations in the future.

Han-Jung Ko, M.S.
Doctoral Student
Human Development and Family Sciences

Every two years, graduate employees have the opportunity to bargain with the university over issues that greatly affect our work and lives. The union gives us a voice at the bargaining table about our working conditions, compensation, and benefits. When we reach an understanding with the University on any of those types of issues, they must enter into a written contractual agreement with us. Over the past 10 years, graduates who have participated in bargaining, myself included, have fought for health care, fee relief, raises to the minimum pay graduate employees receive, and improved contract language that addresses issues of workload associated with teaching assistantships. Yet we can currently only bargain on behalf of a fraction of graduate employees: those who are recognized as bargaining unit members. Consequently, we can only enforce what we have won through bargaining for bargaining unit members. Most research assistants, therefore, are not guaranteed protection under the contract, and do not have a voice at the bargaining table.

Once all graduate employees are recognized as bargaining unit members, we will be able to give voice to issues that primarily affect graduate research assistants, and the university will have to respect all graduate work as “in service to the university.” With graduate research assistants recognized at the bargaining table, the union will have a stronger voice by representing all graduate employees, and all graduate employees will have a say in the issues that are most important to them. Every graduate employee, whether a TA or an RA, deserves to be granted the full rights and protections of the contract that we as a union fight so hard to establish and improve every two years.

In solidarity,
Jack Day
Graduate Research Assistant
Human Development and Family Sciences