To support the GEU, here are a few things you could do:
- Send an email to the MSU President LouAnna K. Simon, Provost June Youatt, and/or Associate Provost Terry Curry and tell them you stand with GEU (there's a form letter for inspiration at the bottom of this post).
- Take a #SolidaritySelfie and tweet it to @GradEmpUnion! You can stand with us and brag about your accomplishment all at once!
- Sign our petition: http://tinyurl.com/q5xgza3
- If you're still around next week, come support us on Wednesday at 10am outside the Hannah Admin Building, as we ask MSU, who pulled away from the bargaining table late last night, to honor their commitment to bargain with us! Here's the facebook event for details!
- Read up on bargaining between GEU and MSU here on our blog!
Form Letter for Your Inspirational Needs:
Dear President Simon,
I am an undergraduate/parent/graduate student/alumnus at MSU and I stand with the GEU. I want you to go back to the bargaining table next week and give them the tuition, healthcare, and salary support they need.
Sincerely,
Information you can pull from to help craft a letter of your own:
Dear Students,
This is what's going on in bargaining...
In the contract's anti-discrimination language, GEU insured that our contract will allow us to file grievances on all of the categories we initially proposed. The union plans to continue working to develop educational materials to help TAs navigate the process and create an inclusive environment free from harassment.
For tuition, the university agreed to drop the post-comprehensive exam tuition waiver reduction and to add 100 extra credits to pool available to help T.A.s whose waivers will not cover their courses. The combined effect of hearing from over 300 graduate students who could be hurt by the proposal and hearing from faculty, students, and parents in attendance at GEU events and through behind the scenes phone calls and emails, made it impossible for the university bargaining team to maintain their position. Your attendance at GEU events and behind the scenes phone calls and emails made a real difference.
Despite this substantial movement, the proposed tuition waiver is still not at a level comparable to other BIG 10 universities- but we have made substantial progress. We are still working to achieve summer tuition coverage for all TAs in the form of a wrap around waiver. If we have the ability to take summer courses, we will be able to more easily balance teaching, course work, and research during the fall and spring. This will also help to support the educational goals of many graduate students who work as adjuncts during the summer semester.
This movement was driven almost entirely by the support of faculty and students outside the bargaining room. And we need to intensify that pressure. The university is not willing to finalize their move on tuition unless we give somewhere else- they will not sign our waiver unless we agree to a grab bag of unacceptable proposals.
In order to secure these tuition gains, they demand that we accept a contract with no university contribution to dependent health insurance premiums. This will make student contributions for dependent health insurance completely inaccessible for student parents. For example, the new cost to enroll two children will be $5,832, an increase of $2,730. They expect these costs will increase by 10% per year. Neither graduate students nor faculty can watch as we saddle parents with rapidly increasing healthcare costs.
Late Thursday night, the university bargaining team seemed to indicate a willingness to move on dependent health care subsidies, our team rapidly drew up a new proposal and prepared to talk. However, they claimed that by following basic health laws now in place they are subsidizing our dependents' healthcare. Hiding behind the A.C.A. is not the same as providing active support for families.
Following one last ill considered proposal in which the university initially asked that we pay over 100% of the cost of dependent premiums (they quickly reconsidered this) it became clear that no more progress could be made for the night. The university then refused to honor the two remaining scheduled bargaining sessions and instead offered to meet with us starting again in June.
Ask them to come back to the bargaining table and bargain in good faith. TAs need a contract that helps them live while they teach the next generation of Spartans. Go Green.
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