Bargaining Update 4/15

#Fightfor15

While the nation was rallying around raising wages for minimum wage workers, the bargaining team was inside bargaining our contract for the next four years! We provided some great counter proposals, requested by the Office of Employee Relations, and they were prepped - with internal experts that understand the wonky way in which we all get paid at MSU - to counter...

We submitted a new proposal with appointment periods that have a clear beginning and ending date. One of the University's concerns is that we need to change the contract language from salary to stipend is because they don't want to have another 'overlap' issue, where summer term TAs were not paid fully for both appointments.Our language 1) offered a change in terminology from salary to 'pay', avoiding the term they don't want, and 2) gave clear employment dates for each semester, eliminating the possibility of overlap issues, and preserving our pay periods so that we never experience a gap in pay. The deans on the Administration's side seemed supportive of this, but the Office of Employee Relations didn't seem as excited about it, even though it met the needs they expressed. We are concerned about changing the stipend/salary language for a number of reasons, and you can read about them in past blog posts.

MSU brought in someone from the Solutions Center to talk about pay periods and the language that we provided so they could "Open the floor for scenarios that could lead to unintended consequences created by our proposal." After some conversation, it was clear there were none, and our proposal should work. They were appreciative of us bringing forward a proposal.

We submitted a proposal that we would drop our full tuition waiver (sad, but a fight for another day) if they increased our tuition pool, currently under-supported with only 200 credits to dole out over the whole year, and said that we would maintain the 9-9-5 tuition waiver. Elle Gulotty presented data showing the increasing burden being put on the pool and that we consistently are getting increasingly more requests for credits. We asked for 800, and there was a numerical estimation of what we projected would be needed. Its likely that more credits yet might be needed, but we wanted to provide a sound reason for our proposed number.

One dean expressed a concern that these numbers could be inflated because of the 999 cap that has recently been put on students in some departments, and we discussed how we only give credits when there is a confirmed need, not when students want to take an excess of credits. Depending on what credits are waived, the dean brought up, departments lose some internal funding. We explained that, while that is unfortunate, it is not the Graduate Students' problem, nor an obligation of this contract to solve, how the University compensates departments for credits they offer.

It was, in all, a great bargaining session. When we put our bodies on the cogs, there's motion! So keep coming out to events, keep showing your support for the bargaining team, and we'll keep making progress!!

#StandUpForTHIS