Media Advisory
For Immediate Release
Friday 1/20/12
Contact:
Mellisa Sanders -Â Graduate Employees’ Organization Parents’ Caucus Chair -Â melissa.r.sanders@gmail.com
Jim McAsey – Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO) Staff Organizer – jim.mcasey@geo3550.org – 734-995-0221 (office)
WHAT:Â Press conference
WHEN:Â 2:30pm, Monday 1/23/12
WHERE:Â Outside the Administrative Services Building, University of Michigan (1009 Greene St. Ann Arbor)Â Directions.
WHO:Â Parents’ Caucus of the Graduate Employees’ Union, AFT #3550
VISUAL:Â Parents with babies in arms holding signs that read “WORK WITH US.”
WHY: As part of contract negotiations last year between GEO and UM, a committee was created of GEO members and UM administrators to evaluate the childcare subsidy policy for graduate employee parents. $150,000 was allotted to implement recommendations made by this committee.  Unfortunately, the administrators are dragging their feet – they have not presented any ideas or data to move this process forward. They even openly state that UM’s Administration sees no need to improve the status quo. GEO finds UM’s lack of commitment to this committee and to the needs of graduate worker parents unacceptable.
The Graduate Employees’ Organization (umgeo.org) is the labor union representing ~1,800 Graduate Student Instructors (GSIs) and Graduate Student Staff Assistants (GSSAs) at the University of Michigan. GEO was founded in 1970 and we won our first contract in 1975, making GEO the oldest certified graduate employee union in the United States.
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