CGE General Membership Meeting
10.21.2016, 5:30PM, Corvallis Senior Center

 

Ratification Vote Election Committee
Evan Scruton, Emily Foster, and Brian Trick volunteered to count the ratification ballots at the close of the vote.

Steward Recognition 
Terese Jones (HDFS Steward) is recognized for going above and beyond to defend a fellow employee in a serious grievance.

Contract Changes & Implementation
Dixie provided a quick summary of contract changes:

Health Insurance Premiums: OSU’s contribution to employee and family insurance increases  to 87% Fall 2016, 88% 2017, 89% 2018, and , finally, 90% 2019.
Health Insurance Enrollment: Graduate Employees will be automatically enrolled in health insurance beginning their first term of employment, and they and their families will be re-enrolled each subsequent
Summer Health Insurance: Graduate Employees enrolled in the Pacific Source plan will automatically be enrolled in summer coverage and have 1/9 of summer premiums deducted from each academic year paycheck.
SEVIS and Visa Fees: International Graduate Employees may have up to $360 of the cost of visa and/or SEVIS fees reimbursed to them over the course of their graduate career.
Minimum FTE: Effective Fall 2017, the minimum FTE will increase from 0.2 to 0.3.
Summer Assistantships: The minimum enrollment for those on assistantship will drop from 9 credit hours to 3 credit hours.
Length & Notice of Appointment: All assistantships will be for the duration of the academic year or longer, unless a reason for a shorter appointment is noted on the appointment letter.
 
A few people brought up important issues, including the need for a blended rate for health insurance to share the cost of family health insurance across all funding sources. The new blended rate should be active as of Fall 2016. There was also some concern about a higher minimum FTE leading to fewer graduate employment opportunities. We encourage anyone worried about this in their program to contact us to talk about ways to work with OSU to mitigate this impact. People raised issues around workspace and access to private meeting space. They also felt that implementation of notice of appointment and assignment language would be difficult. People are worried about not having received insurance cards yet.

Amplifying Diverse Voices 
Several people provided feedback for amplifying and better representing diverse voices:

• Consider veteran status and ways to negotiate for the needs of veterans
• Clarify an instructors obligation to share ADA status of a student with TAs
• Work on the enrollment requirement for international students on internship
• Have a CGE member on the AFT-Oregon Social Justice Work Group
• Participate in Re-Naming Efforts (Gill, Avery, Arnold)
• Translate key CGE documents
• Improve Gender Options on Insurance Plan

Several people volunteered to serve on CGE’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee: Alicia Gonzales, Emory Colvin, Massarra Eiwaz (can also translate to Arabic), and Evan Scruton.

Dixie also shared that there would be a march against the Dakota Access Pipeline on Saturday, October 22 11:30am.

Improve CGE’s Practices & Structures
Members offered the following ideas for improving CGE’s practices and structures:

• Have OSU include information on CGE and/or union rights when they make initial offer to new employees.
• Have a joint calendar with departments to avoid overlapping events
• Help stewards develop a relationship with everyone in the department
• Each steward should host a meeting within their department
• Work hard to hear different viewpoints, especially those who don’t regularly show up to things like the GMM
• Ideas for anonymous consensus processes:
  1. Chips (fist-five)
  2. Top Hat application
  3. Concerns about moving forward if anonymous
• Work hard at reaching out to folks who don’t start in the Fall Term
• Ask members what they want from their stewards
• Have the steward have a recognized role within department GSAs
• Rope courses for team building! (seconded!)

 
Brew-Off
The Brew-Off is Saturday, November 12^th at 7pm at Odd Fellows Hall. We need brewers and volunteers, so keep your eye on your inbox! Proceeds go to the Linn-Benton Food Share, and we’re on track to beat last year’s record.

Open Floor

• Sign up for Inspiration Dissimenation for a chance to be on the radio and talk about your research (Kristen Finch).
• Vote for CGE member Sami Al-Abdrabbuh for Oregon House of Representatives (Kris Osterloh)

 

Adjourned: 7:15pm.