GEO at university of illinois votes to strike

click for the press release

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE: FOR THE FIRST TIME, MAJOR STUDENT UNION AT
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS OVERWHELMINGLY VOTES TO AUTHORIZE A STRIKE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: FOR THE FIRST TIME, MAJOR STUDENT UNION AT
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS OVERWHELMINGLY VOTES TO AUTHORIZE A STRIKE
GRADUATE EMPLOYEES’ ORGANIZATION REPRESENTS ONE OF LARGEST LOCAL
HIGHER EDUCATION BARGAINING UNITS IN THE UNITED STATES

URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, ILLINOIS (November 7): On Monday, November 9th, the
Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO) at the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) will hold a press conference at 1:00 pm at
1001 S. Wright Street in Champaign, IL to announce the results of its
strike authorization vote.

Over the course of a three day vote, an overwhelming 92% of
participating GEO members chose to authorize a strike against the
Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.  With the vote, GEO
members have given the strike committee of the GEO a clear mandate to
call a strike at any time.  The Graduate Employee’s Organization,
American Federation of Teachers/Illinois Federation of Teachers Local
6300, AFL-CIO, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is a labor
union representing all teaching and graduate assistants (TAs and GAs)
on the UIUC campus.  With over 2600 GEO members, and over 2600
graduate employees represented in the bargaining unit, the GEO is one
of the largest higher education union locals in the United States.

The GEO has been negotiating with UIUC administrators for over six
months. The GEO seeks a contract that will set the minimum salary for
a 50% nine month appointment at the University’s estimate of a living
wage for a graduate student in Urbana-Champaign and protect tuition
waivers for TAs and GAs. While the GEO presented the administration
with a full contract proposal on the first day of negotiations, the
UIUC administration declined to offer a counterproposal until August
11th, just four days before the GEO’s previous contract expired.  The
UIUC administration’s initial contract proposal sought to freeze GEO
wages for three years, reserve the right to furlough and layoff
graduate employees in good standing, and to count “in-kind”
compensation such as housing or meal vouchers toward the minimum
salary mandated in the contract.

The GEO understands that the state of Illinois is in dire economic
straits, but as University administrators pointed out in their FY 2010
budget request, this is the result of long standing deficiencies in
state level budget prioritization and not a sudden result of the
recent national recession.  Instead of championing the university’s
historic land grant mission, UIUC administrators have embraced the
national tendency toward the corporatization of the public higher
education system. Their consequent failure to secure adequate state
funding leaves the social science, humanities, and fine arts
especially vulnerable. Worse, it jeopardizes access to higher
education for many who have the capacity and desire, but not the
financial resources to attend the University.  If increased state
funding is also necessary to providing at least a living wage for all
campus employees, then the GEO expects the UIUC administration to
forcefully make that case to the Higher Education Appropriations
Committee, other state legislators, and the Governor.

Instead of advocating on the behalf of students and workers,
administrators were granting costly favors to state politicians.  The
former Chancellor diverted $450,000 of discretionary funds to provide
jobs and scholarships for politically well-connected but undeserving
applicants.  Another $400,000 went to the attorneys who represented
the University before the Governor’s investigative committee, and
another $550,000 to new faculty appointments for the former President
and Chancellor.  In this context, the GEO finds it hard to trust the
UIUC administration when it argues that there is not enough money to
provide a living wage.  From the GEO’s perspective, it appears that
budget priorities are simply out of place.  When campus revenues rose
by 7% in FY 2009, only 0.8% ($2.7 million) went to undergraduate
instruction.  Meanwhile, the Chief Information Officer’s budget rose
by 10.9 percent ($1.6 million), and the Division of Intercollegiate
Athletics budget increased 6.2 percent ($4.1 million).

GEO bargaining unit members teach 23.1% of all undergraduate course
hours at UIUC, and perform comparably to faculty in official student
evaluations of instructor performance as measured by the University of
Illinois’ Center for Teaching Excellence.   Yet our salaries draw only
6.5% of state funding, including salaries for GAs and Research
Assistants, who don’t teach.  By contrast, faculty salaries draw over
55% of the University budget.  Graduate employee labor is vital to the
fiscally efficient provision of the University’s core service,
academic instruction. Should graduate employee salaries be set to a
living wage, the University would still have a large pool of
inexpensive and high quality instructional and administrative labor.

GEO members have been working hard to avoid a strike.  Hundreds of GEO
members have participated in three major rallies, and GEO members have
also lobbied the Illinois House of Representatives Higher Education
Appropriations Committee, spoken with state legislators from
Champaign, actively informed campus community members about the
issues, and maintained a constant presence in Urbana-Champaign print,
radio and television media.  The Illinois Student Senate has passed
two resolutions in support of the GEO and the decision to authorize a
strike, and GEO supporters in the faculty senate are working to pass a
similar resolution. GEO members and allies will hold a rally at the
University of Illinois Board of Trustees Meeting in Springfield, IL on
November 12.

As with any labor negotiation, however, the most effective pressure
has been the threat of a strike. Only after GEO members at a General
Membership Meeting voted unanimously to file an “intent to strike”
notice did the University administration offer their first compromise
proposals.  Accordingly, the Coordinating Committee and Steward’s
Council of the GEO voted unanimously to hold a strike authorization
vote from November 4-6. By voting to authorize a strike, GEO members
have taken a vital step in holding the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign administration accountable to its stated commitment
to excellence in research and undergraduate education.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: Peter Campbell, GEO Communications
Officer, odell.campbell@gmail.com, 253-222-5861, or the GEO office at
geo@uigeo.org, 217-344-8283, 1001 S. Wright Street, Champaign, IL,
61820.  Information about the GEO can also be found on our website at
www.uigeo.org.
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