GEO Members fill the Regents’ Meeting; call on AHR to continue bargaining
December 8, 2022
Over 30 members of the Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO – AFT Local 3550) packed the University of Michigan Regents’ Meeting on December 8 to deliver a united message: graduate workers want to bargain for affordability and dignity immediately with Academic Human Resources (AHR).
U-M AHR refused to meet with GEO representatives on December 2 because GEO did not agree to a series of burdensome ground rules that would limit grad worker attendance–in-person and over Zoom–at bargaining sessions. GEO members are dismayed that the abysmal access to trans health care and the need for lower mental health copay caps for grad students, among other important issues, were ignored just because AHR did not want grad workers in attendance.
Nearly 300 grad students and allies have demonstrated their commitment to transparency in negotiation sessions by contacting President Ono to urge him to support open bargaining. They outline how all grad workers should be able to participate in bargaining sessions because they are experiencing an affordability crisis that affects everyone. GEO’s dedication to open bargaining has been supported by the U-M Central Student Government, who passed a resolution calling for fair and accessible negotiations between GEO and the University, and by local union chapters and city council members.
Open and transparent bargaining is not unprecedented at the University of Michigan. Bargaining sessions between GEO and the University were open to the public in 1975. Further, as noted by a letter in support from Ian Robinson, lecturer and former president of the Lecturers’ Employee Organization (LEO) at U-M, since LEO was founded in 2004, “Every session of every one of those six rounds [of collective bargaining] was open to as many LEO members as wished to attend.”
GEO members, worried that these rules have only now changed to keep out grad workers, are attending today’s Regents’ Meeting to appeal to President Ono and the Regents to get AHR back to the bargaining table. Michael Mueller, GEO member in Mathematics, told the Regents, “Many of us are struggling to scrape by and to live through grad school with dignity – from parents forced to take second and even third jobs just to pay the bills, to social work students required to do unpaid fieldwork, to grads forced to bear the costs of harassment and discrimination in the workplace.”
As Rhiannon Willow, GEO member in Physics, commented, “GEO’s queer/trans caucus has developed proposals that will greatly reduce barriers to accessing transgender healthcare, and we are eager to discuss our proposals with Academic HR. But currently, we are unable to discuss any of our proposals with Academic HR, because they refuse to recognize our union’s chosen representation.”
Grad workers are excited by President Ono’s commitment to transparency and efforts to restore trust in University administration. However, AHR’s actions are the opposite of these stated principles. GEO members call on President Ono and the Board of Regents to encourage AHR to continue bargaining immediately.
Twitter: @geo3550
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