UIUC GEO Strike Fund
Donation protected
The Graduate Employees' Organization (GEO) is in an intense struggle with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Administration over our current contract negotiations. Quite frankly, our living stability is at stake. We are asking the University of Illinois to pay us fair wages, continue to protect our tuition waivers, waive excessive fees that pose an undue burden on us, and provide cheaper and better healthcare for ourselves and our families.
In response, the University Administration has proposed to weaken our current contract, in effect disrespecting us, our labor and the quality of education on the campus. The University Administration is threatening our stability in the following ways:
1. By keeping graduate employees on the campus wage program where the University has sole control over our wages and can reduce our pay at any time.
2. By attempting to remove tuition waiver protection from our contract so that new and maybe even current students pay unaffordable tuition.
3. By having us pay increased, unaffordable health care premiums and by denying subsidized health care coverage during the summer or for our dependents.
4. By refusing to bargain to provide childcare resources, when childcare is completely unaffordable for graduate students who make an average of $16,300 a year, which is $6000 below the living wage for Champaign-Urbana.
5. By removing our ability to grieve specific union contract violations like delaying our appointment to a job on campus.
These dangerous actions at the bargaining table not only threaten to lower the economic standards for workers on campus and in the Champaign community, but they also threaten to potentially break our union over time.
Back in November, the GEO held a strike vote in which 93% of the ballots voted in favor of authorizing the Strike Committee to file the Intent to Strike Paperwork whenever it deemed necessary. On Monday, January 29, 2018, after approximately ten months of bargaining, including four months with a federal mediator, and nearly six months after our current contract expired on August 15, 2017, the GEO filed Intent to Strike Paperwork with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board. After another unsuccessful bargaining session on February 7th, where the University Administration revealed their plans to terminate full tuition waiver protections for teaching and graduate assistants and consequently bust our union, the GEO officially announced its plan to strike beginning on February 26th.
We reach out to you today, as our allies, friends, and supporters, to tell you that our fight is far from over. You are essential to our strike plan, our union, our success and therefore we need you now. To help us win the fair contract that we deserve, you can donate to our Strike Fund. We need monetary resources to stay out and win. Our members need your financial support, if possible, to stay on the picket lines and demonstrate that the University only works because we do.
Disclaimer: Donations to the GEO are not deductible for federal income tax purposes.
In response, the University Administration has proposed to weaken our current contract, in effect disrespecting us, our labor and the quality of education on the campus. The University Administration is threatening our stability in the following ways:
1. By keeping graduate employees on the campus wage program where the University has sole control over our wages and can reduce our pay at any time.
2. By attempting to remove tuition waiver protection from our contract so that new and maybe even current students pay unaffordable tuition.
3. By having us pay increased, unaffordable health care premiums and by denying subsidized health care coverage during the summer or for our dependents.
4. By refusing to bargain to provide childcare resources, when childcare is completely unaffordable for graduate students who make an average of $16,300 a year, which is $6000 below the living wage for Champaign-Urbana.
5. By removing our ability to grieve specific union contract violations like delaying our appointment to a job on campus.
These dangerous actions at the bargaining table not only threaten to lower the economic standards for workers on campus and in the Champaign community, but they also threaten to potentially break our union over time.
Back in November, the GEO held a strike vote in which 93% of the ballots voted in favor of authorizing the Strike Committee to file the Intent to Strike Paperwork whenever it deemed necessary. On Monday, January 29, 2018, after approximately ten months of bargaining, including four months with a federal mediator, and nearly six months after our current contract expired on August 15, 2017, the GEO filed Intent to Strike Paperwork with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board. After another unsuccessful bargaining session on February 7th, where the University Administration revealed their plans to terminate full tuition waiver protections for teaching and graduate assistants and consequently bust our union, the GEO officially announced its plan to strike beginning on February 26th.
We reach out to you today, as our allies, friends, and supporters, to tell you that our fight is far from over. You are essential to our strike plan, our union, our success and therefore we need you now. To help us win the fair contract that we deserve, you can donate to our Strike Fund. We need monetary resources to stay out and win. Our members need your financial support, if possible, to stay on the picket lines and demonstrate that the University only works because we do.
Disclaimer: Donations to the GEO are not deductible for federal income tax purposes.
Organizer
GEO Strike Fund
Organizer
Champaign, IL