Updates from the bargaining session that happened during our March for THIS

We wish we could tell you that because of your hard efforts at the march last Friday, MSU has 'seen' the light. In fact, we thought we would be able to tell you this. But while we have some good news about salary, almost everything else we have to share is not so exciting. Please COME TO A GRADE IN this TUESDAY in the building where we have our negotiations, NESBIT HALL. Its a bit of a hike, so if you need a ride, contact us (geu at msu dot org)!


We approached bargaining on Friday with the hope that this would be a productive conversation. Thursday’s bargaining session showed positive movement from the university on the issue of raises- especially the raises for those at the very bottom of the pay scale. The ten percent increases for the very minimums would be a big step towards protecting our most vulnerable TAs, raising the minimum salary for a half-time, academic year TA almost to $14,200. The 1.5 percent annual raises for everyone are considerably better than the earlier .3% proposed raises. For reference, here is where MSU TA salaries currently stand with respect to peer institutions. Many of these institutions already have 3+% salary raises for the next couple years.  So we will need to do better than the current proposal to keep pace once we raise the minimums.

With a little time to look over the full proposal, we did note that many members would still be worse off because of the reduced tuition waiver for students after comps and the removal MSU’s contribution to dependent healthcare premium costs. And so we came to bargaining on Friday intending to discuss those two problems.

MSU’s plan to reduce the tuition to three credits after comps would create a net loss for many doctoral candidates. Currently, post comps students take an average of about 4.2 credits per semester. Paying for extra two or three credits per year would cost from $1,292 to $1,938 a year. While many students might be able to stay below the limit of three credits, there are some programs where this would be nearly impossible. Many departments take comprehensive exams early in their program leaving those students struggling to catch up with 999s. That, in turn, might cause students to delay taking comps, which would increase average time to completion and cost students and the university more money. Any special issue courses that come up later or other class needs might be impossible. OER claims that the people they have spoken to so far say the problems would be minor. It also seems that they have spoken to very few people in the College of Education, College of Social Science, and College of Music. Overall, OER’s proposal to weaken our tuition waiver would push us closer to the bottom of the pile with respect to our Big Ten public institution peers than we already are.

School	Credits Covered by Tuition Waiver
Ohio State	All
Penn State	All
Michigan	All
Rutgers	All
Purdue	All
Illinois	All
Wisconsin	All
Iowa	All
Nebraska	12
Maryland	10
Michigan State	9 (MSU proposal: Only 3 after comps)
Minnesota	6

Any student who needs six credits per semester would see increased out of pocket tuition costs of $3,876 a year at current tuition rates.Note that their proposal drops us to THE VERY BOTTOM OVERALL in the Big10. ...go green.

After a brief caucus we returned to discuss MSU’s contribution to dependent health care costs. MSU claims that because of changes to health insurance regulations, costs for enrolling a spouse will be reduced substantially making the subsidies for premiums unnecessary. While the costs would be reduced for the first year, using MSU’s predictions for premium increases on our health plan we can see that they will be considerably higher than they are now by the end of the contract. And while costs to enroll a spouse will drop temporarily, costs to enroll children will increase immediately. The proposed changes will hurt families. The new cost to enroll two children will be $5,832, an increase of $2,730.

We pointed out which groups would be hurt and that even the reduced costs for spouses are unmanageable on a small salary. Many Teaching Assistants already rely on the food bank or student loans to help get by after paying health premiums for their children.

After a day of conversations about proposals reducing our tuition and health benefits, OER said that we seemed to be asking for everything we already had only better. They suggested we make hard decisions about things like whether or not we buy generic brands and whether or not we add ground beef to our spaghetti sauce. They suggested we make hard decisions, adult decisions, about whether we choose to have children, and whether or not we choose to come to MSU if we already have families.

It is unacceptable for MSU to make graduate education unfeasible for parents. This is not an issue of buying generic brand food, this is an issue of accessible higher education and health insurance for children. Should you, as a woman, have to defer your choice to have a child until you have received your terminal degree? Should you be forced to choose between an education and a high risk (by virtue of mother's age) pregnancy? Should you be forced to choose between the family that you have and continuing your education? MSU seems to believe we should. We are a cheap demographic to insure. Because of the nature of international student visas and a number of other legal constraints, MSU must provide healthcare. And we believe that they shouldn't limit the diversity of people who can receive a graduate degree here by offering limited, non-comprehensive healthcare to us and our families, asking us to assume rising healthcare costs, and protecting their bottom line.

  Sign up for a shift at an upcoming GRADE IN! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1UX2I2HxmI343NKlTT82mANHiy6wW9z9BzCSphMtFlRs/viewform

Bargaining Update 4/28 and 4/29

Your bargaining team is headed into another session of bargaining today, and as they do, we wanted to update you on what's been going on this week.

We had bargaining sessions scheduled for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. At Tuesday's session, the Administration tried to cancel both Wednesday and Thursday meetings. At a time when we are all busy doing the final exam prep and grading of final papers for our students, our bargaining committee, who manage to prioritize both their undergraduates and our contract needs this week, were unfortunately not prioritized by the Administration.

Tuesday's bargaining session was a little frustrating. We presented the administration with a compelling economic proposal that was designed to help the nearly 50% of TAs who work here for the minimum salary first by prioritizing raising the base wage for them, doing the most good with the money MSU allocates for us. We were met with what seemed to us to be a fundamental insensitivity to the struggles that students go through when they make so little. We were asked "is it really fair to compare yourselves to the poverty line when you're only working 20 hours?" Despite the fact that many of us go above and beyond our hours to work with our students, providing one-on-one feedback to them and writing letters of recommendation, do an additional 30+ hours of research to work toward our degrees, and are active citizens in our departments, they ask why we don't take on part time jobs to supplement our income.

Consider this example from one of our international members: they were promised a quarter-time appointment in music, and are allowed to work outside of MSU only in the field of music because of regulations associated with their Visa. One member of the administration suggested they tutor her kids in music. First, getting paid under the table is illegal everywhere, and especially problematic when one could lose their visa, and second, with what time could this member self-advertise, pay for a car to travel to her house or pay for office space in which to provide those lessons? This doesn't even consider departments that contractually obligate people to not take positions outside of the department in order to receive an appointment.

We thought we were getting somewhere with mitigating their concern for overlap issues, a problem with their payment system that they have asked us to resolve in the contract, but were informed that they need more time to answer how they will implement the appointment period suggestions we made in our platform to mitigate those concerns relative to pay periods and class schedules. We pointed out that they had had our proposal for some time and that they were employees paid to do this work. We also believe that, at an R1 research institution, they  have enough paid people on staff to do the research in a timely manner. They took up much of our bargaining session doing this research. Again, they are paid to do this, and we are TAs and RAs volunteering our time. Yet we are generally meeting the deadlines we agree upon and have much more research evidence that we bring more than a mile with us to Nisbet Hall, while they do their research in offices above our bargaining room. We are truly impressive students, and MSU should be proud of our diligence.

We are having trouble understanding why our perspectives, and our proposals, are provoking such curious responses form the administration. Given that our teaching contributes approximately $226 million dollars to the university's revenue (2014-2015) and around 30% of the teaching (which wer're pretty sure is the reason MSU exists) the fact that we are asking for around 2.2% of their budget to sustain us doesn't seem outrageous at all. Asking for salary above poverty line for 2 people, and for healthcare to keep us prepared to teach the ~40,000 students at MSU each year seems pretty reasonable to us.

Not happy? Come out to our MARCH FOR THIS, this Friday at the Rock, 12:30.

Bargaining Update - Last Week

Sorry for the delay getting the bargaining update from last week up. We are all busy with amazing GEU actions like the GEU Bargaining Block Party that had LOTS and LOTS of people out! We're still tallying numbers, but we handed out over 100 shirts, ran out of food twice, and even signed up a few new members! Thank you for coming out, for telling your friends and colleagues, and for following us here, on facebook, and on twitter.

We're having a March for THIS on Friday, starting at 12:30 at the Rock and wandering over to the Hannah Admin building. Look for updates (especially if you have to join us a little late) on social media to see where we're at, and join us! Its supposed to be BEAUTIFUL on Friday, so you have no excuses!

Bargaining update:
We met with MSU twice last week, on Tuesday and Thursday. Most importantly, MSU finally unveiled the 'magic spreadsheet' they were using to calculate our potential wage increases and healthcare compensation. Unfortunately, its not all that magical. It is the same spreadsheet they used during our bargaining negotiations 4 years ago, using numbers they told us about in previous bargaining sessions. Our team was sadly underwhelmed. Basically, they say they will give us 2% to add to our overall compensation package, to be divided how we see fit. Here's what's in it:

1) to keep the healthcare we have presently, we have to abandon ALL of our economic platform. No dependent coverage subsidies, no salary increases, no bus passes, no compensation for SEVIS, international, or engineering fees, no childcare subsidies. The small amount left over from what they anticipate healthcare to eat the 2% increase they are willing to give us would look like this on our paychecks byweekly:

Next year:
 level 1 level 2 level 3

¼ time $0.987 $1.092 $1.14

½ time $1.974 $2.184 $2.28

¾ time $2.961 $3.276 $3.42

At year 4:
level 1 level 2 level 3

¼ time   $3.965 $4.38 $4.58

½ time $7.93 $8.77 $9.16

¾ time $11.89 $13.16 $13.74


So, we have been waiting months to see this proposal from MSU. They do bargaining for a living. And they gave us this. A terrible compensation increase that in no way keeps us competitive as a research institution, forces us to choose between increased cost of living compensation and healthcare (which we SHOULD NOT HAVE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN). And worst of all, they lied and said they were working hard on a model that they, in reality, didn't change since the last time we bargained a contract with them in 2011. We could have had this information to you as early as January, but it was intentionally withheld from us, the volunteer leaders of the bargaining team, under the guise of paid MSU staffers 'working hard to figure it out'.

You may notice that you didn't get a wage increase in your appointment letters. That's because we haven't negotiated that yet. You ARE ALREADY BEING IMPACTED by the changes that could happen in this bargaining session. You have received an appointment letter because its something GEU bargained for in previous bargaining years.

If you haven't yet come out to an event to support the GEU, or even if you have, YOU NEED TO COME OUT THIS FRIDAY! The only way your contract will have reasonable healthcare and wages is if YOU come out and take up space. Unfortunately, MSU doesn't respond to us at the bargaining table unless we come out to events like the March for THIS on Friday. Thanks to your efforts with the Bargaining Block Party, we expect good things in our bargaining sessions this week, but we have to keep showing our support to the bargaining team to see gains in the next couple weeks. RSVP your commitment to Friday's march on our facebook page:

Solidarity!

GEU Bargaining Block Party - Today!

Come out today between 12-3 to the green space behind the International Center, called People's Park, grab some lunch on the GEU, listen to music, enjoy the sunshine, and contribute to your contract by being present in a space. Sign an oversized banner for our march next week, learn about this week's bargaining sessions and the progress the bargaining team can make when we all show up at an event like this one!

https://www.facebook.com/events/1576828829253844/



 

Upcoming bargaining dates

Upcoming bargaining dates, in a beautiful hand-drawn calendar drawn by your bargaining team!

Want to attend as an observer or offer support to the bargaining team? Reach out! Geu@msu.edu

#standupforTHIS #geuisu

Highlighting a speech from the Board of Trustees meeting

Solidarity means something important to GEU members. Not all of us make the minimum salary, but we all want the minimum salary to increase for those who do. Not all of us have a spouse or child in need of dependent healthcare coverage, but we believe it should be given to those of us who do. Below is a speech from the Board of Trustees meeting highlighting why what we do is important, even if it doesn't always directly impact our bottom lines.

 

Good morning Trustees,

My name is Amineh Farzannia and I am a graduate student in Math Department. Today I am talking to emphasize  the need for anti-harassment language in our contracts. Given the situation in math department which is very much probable to happen in any other department, we need a very strong anti-harassment language in our contracts.

Some international students have contacted GEU and recently complained about the following issues in math department.

1. Students have claimed that they were subject to hostile behavior  from  the Graduate coordinator, including his intimidating and threatening speech. For example, the graduate coordinator  used racially degrading remarks to several graduate students such as "I don't consider you as a good student" or "this place is not for you" or "If you don't solve your problems, I will sent you back home within a week".

2. International Students have declared that they are not treated equally. One American student has indicated that during an office meeting, this gentleman has said that international students are not good TAs because of their "accent" and their "English".

3.There have been some changes in the department regarding governing policies of the department which are  big concerns. For instance, Recently, some of the International students were prevented from enrollment for Fall 2015 and Spring 2016 because the graduate office considered them as students who are not in" good standing" The

department is totally reluctant to define the term "Good Standing".

 

4. Some of the departmental positions which were supposed to be assigned based on "merit basis" are now mostly assigned arbitrarily. I interpret this to be based off of the Graduate Office's discriminatory actions.

5.I  personally  have been subject to a two-year abusive practice  by my administration and some of the faculty members. I have not been able to focus on any research due to  stress from  two years of harassment created by math department. 

Unfortunately, There are many other issues happening in layers but  due to the lack of time I prefer to stop here. At the end, It is necessary to mention that all of the above claims are based on documentations.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

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