Comments on: Third round of bargaining, March 17 http://cge6069.org/third_round_of_bargaining_march_17 AFT Local 6069 Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:51:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 By: Clare Elliott http://cge6069.org/third_round_of_bargaining_march_17#comment-5 Clare Elliott Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:21:25 +0000 http://cge6069.org/third_round_of_bargaining#comment-5 I hope to attend at least part of the bargaining on Monday. It all sounds very interesting and I am sorry that I was unable to attend the previous two sessions. As an international graduate student in the BPP dept I am particularly concerned about: * abolition of leave for elections in home country. * emergency leave and maternity or parental leave. * wages should at least keep up with inflation especially with the economy being as unstable as it is at present. * even if you can't negotiate an increase in OSU's contribution to the health plant then an improvement on the current plan could be to decrease the $200 deductible to $50 or something affordable. I find this to be rather expensive considering I am relatively healthy I can't really afford to apy up to 200 per year on check-ups, vaccinations and routine tests. * The current $250 per term fee relief barely covers half of the fees anyway so the abolition of this will be far from satisfactory. If I ever move into a more expensive place of my own I don't know how I will afford this. * When I joined my department, 1 week before classes began in the fall I was unaware of the requirement for training prior to TA-ing (a requirement for my PhD in BPP) therefore I missed the one opportunity per year for this training and I have to put off TA-ing until later in my course. More information available prior to arrival would have been helpful. Thank you for all the work you are doing for us and I look forward to attending on Monday. - Clare Elliott I hope to attend at least part of the bargaining on Monday. It all sounds very interesting and I am sorry that I was unable to attend the previous two sessions. As an international graduate student in the BPP dept I am particularly concerned about:

* abolition of leave for elections in home country.
* emergency leave and maternity or parental leave.
* wages should at least keep up with inflation especially with the economy being as unstable as it is at present.
* even if you can’t negotiate an increase in OSU’s contribution to the health plant then an improvement on the current plan could be to decrease the $200 deductible to $50 or something affordable. I find this to be rather expensive considering I am relatively healthy I can’t really afford to apy up to 200 per year on check-ups, vaccinations and routine tests.
* The current $250 per term fee relief barely covers half of the fees anyway so the abolition of this will be far from satisfactory. If I ever move into a more expensive place of my own I don’t know how I will afford this.
* When I joined my department, 1 week before classes began in the fall I was unaware of the requirement for training prior to TA-ing (a requirement for my PhD in BPP) therefore I missed the one opportunity per year for this training and I have to put off TA-ing until later in my course. More information available prior to arrival would have been helpful.

Thank you for all the work you are doing for us and I look forward to attending on Monday.
- Clare Elliott

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