Dues: What they are and what they’re for. A letter from the GSRA campaign.

One important part of joining a union is paying membership dues. In fact, membership dues represent the main concept of a union: if we all combine our resources and work together, we’ll benefit more than we would as individuals acting alone.

This week, we want to explain why GEO dues are a good value and a wise investment for us as GSRAs.

GEO members pay dues on a percentage-of-pay basis. Using the current dues schedule, a GSRA with an 0.5 appointment for a full year would pay $442 in dues a year once a contract is in force. (As we’ve related elsewhere, no dues are charged until a contract is reached.)

As GSRAs, what would we each get for that $442?

Here are some facts to keep in mind as you think about this question:

$602 > $442

$2,394 > $442

Both of these facts, as you’ll see, mean that GEO dues are a good investment.

In the recent past, $442 in GEO dues has saved each GEO member—and every GSRA–at least $602 somewhere else. Mainly, it’s done this by helping GEO build the power to keep our money in our pockets at the bargaining table.

In 2010, the UM administration began acting on the recommendations of its own Committee on Sustainable Health Benefits (COSHB) in an attempt to shift health-care costs to employees. (For more on COSHB, see http://bit.ly/ojT7Fm.)

For graduate employees, COSHB recommendations would have hurt. The reform would have cost a single grad employee an additional $602 in annual health care premium costs. It would have cost a grad employee with a spouse $1,863 annually. Insuring oneself, one’s partner and any number of kids would have set a graduate employee back a total of $2,573 in additional premium costs alone – and that’s not including co-pays.

The COSHB recommendations were implemented without negotiation for the vast majority of employees on campus, including everyone from highly-compensated administrators and faculty to the lowest-paid clerical workers at UM. The only employees who escaped the COSHB recommendations were represented by unions, including GEO (which has a history of successfully beating back co-premiums as far back as 2003, when hundreds of members turned out to oppose them)—and GSRAs, who benefited from GEO’s advocacy. As a result, GradCare copremiums remain at zero.

Moving on to the $2,394 figure above, let’s look at salary. What might salary minima look like without GEO?

To attract bright graduate students, surely UM would have to raise salaries at least somewhat over the years. The university administration recognizes this–in the past, it has expressed great enthusiasm for linking GSI/GSSA salaries to faculty salary increases. (In theory, that might seem fair–but in practice, UM administrators calculate “faculty salary increases” by excluding increases faculty received for promotions, “competitive adjustments,” etc.)

So, how has GEO done at the bargaining table in comparison to “faculty salary increases” as defined by UM?

The “faculty salary increase” has averaged 2.1 percent a year since 2004-05. GEO’s annual raises have averaged 3.5 percent during that time.

That might not seem like much of a difference, but it adds up: a year-round 0.5 GSRA would have made $2,394 less per year had these increases not been applied.

So: where’s the value in paying union dues? Dues underwrite the power to help win improvements to our wages and benefits at the bargaining table.

But why does the bargaining table matter to GSRAs? Aren’t we just free-riders, benefitting from the gains of GSIs? Historically, that has been the case. But just as 1,600 GSIs working together are more effective than GSIs without a union, so will 2,200 GSRAs joining GEO make for an even more powerful organization. Economic times are getting rougher—and the University has cut benefits and salary for all other employees who don’t have unions, including faculty. The protection of a contract will ensure that the benefits we currently enjoy as GSRAs cannot legally be retracted without negotiation.

In addition to facilitating wins at the bargaining table, GEO dues help support state and national-level advocacy by our affiliates on a variety of issues of direct relevance to us as researchers and as students. This work includes lobbying by AFT Michigan for increased state-level funding for UM, and by AFT for federal-level funding of the grants that support our research. For more on this, see http://www.geo3550.org/research-assistant-campaign/where-does-my-dues-money-go/.

If you have questions about dues, or about what a GSRA union would mean to you and other GSRAs financially (or in any other way), don’t hesitate to contact the GSRA steering committee: gsracampaign@geo3550.org.

Best regards,