The GSRA Steering Committee has been working to keep GSRAs updated on the progress of the campaign with weekly email updates. These updates will also be posted on the website. If you have questions about the campaign or would like to be added to this update list, please contact us at gsracampaign at geo3550.org.
Dear GSRA colleagues,
As you may know, for the last year, Graduate Student Research Assistants at the University of Michigan have been organizing to form a union—a new, separate bargaining unit within the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO). For an update on our progress to an election, see the end of this message. As the new academic year begins, the GSRA steering committee of GEO will distribute a weekly update on the GSRA organizing campaign. In future weeks, these updates will address myths and facts about GEO, GSRA unions on other campuses and what they’ve won, the situations of international GSRAs, and questions about dues and the structure of our union. Soon, we’ll be sending out a link to a survey of GSRAs, the results of which we’ll use to construct a bargaining platform. This week, we begin with a simpler question: why do we want a union?
As we have talked about our work experiences at UM–both what we prize about them and how they could be improved—and we’ve learned that the reasons why GSRAs want to form a union differ as much as GSRAs ourselves do. In some departments, working conditions, pay and benefits are good; GSRAs in those departments want a union to help us and our departments protect and build upon the advantages we have. Andrea Jokisaari, a Materials Science and Engineering PhD student who was elected chair of the GSRA steering committee this month, says:
“I really respect my current advisor and enjoy working with her. She encourages her students to be self-motivated and self-directed on their work, supports sending us to training to help develop our skill-sets, and is flexible about our work hours on campus. A union could help set these ‘best practices’ into a contract for all GSRAs.”
In other departments, GSRAs face issues in need of resolution—inadequate access to research equipment, problems with workplace safety, untimely payment of salaries, and lack of access to sick and bereavement leave are a few about which we’ve heard.
One international GSRA writes:
“I saw students afraid of asking for vacation time to go back home even though they need to attend weddings or funerals….[One student’s] back was injured last Christmas and he couldn’t stand for long time to conduct experiments. He asked to go back home earlier. But his advisor simply replied: ‘Forget your pain. Work day and night.’â€
As GSRAs, we want a union so that—like Graduate Student Instructors and Graduate Student Staff Assistants–we can have a voice in our relationship to UM as employees, and a formal channel through which we can communicate about GSRA priorities and needs.
Peter Keros, a Mechanical Engineering GSRA who is starting law school in the fall, says:
“I have had an excellent time as a GSRA, but I know that many graduate students do not share my positive experience. With a union, we can stand together to bring a positive working experience to all. My situation should be the standard, not the exception.”
We hope that in coming weeks—as you hear more about why we and our GSRA colleagues want to form a union and what we hope our union will achieve—you’ll work with us to make the new GSRA union as strong as possible. If you have questions about the campaign or would like to become more involved, please contact us at gsracampaign at geo3550.org.
Yours truly,
Andrea Jokisaari
Chair, GSRA Steering Committee
Materials Science and Engineering
Samantha Montgomery
President, GEO
Psychology/Women’s Studies
P.S. As you may have heard, the University of Michigan Board of Regents resolved in May that GSRAs are employees and that what we do at our desks and in our labs is work. Some parts of UM’s administration disagree with this decision—President Coleman issued a press release arguing—essentially—that acknowledging our employee status could do some (unspecified) harm to us.
Because of the discrepancy between the Board of Regents’ resolution and President Coleman’s position, on August 8, the Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC) turned away our initial election agreement. MERC said that that it needed an unambiguous statement that GSRAs are employees so that it could order an election. MERC also said that it could reconsider its refusal of our election agreement if presented with new facts; we expect that the remaining obstacles to an election will be worked out soon. (The Mackinac Center’s petition to deny us the right to vote was rejected on its face.) For updates, please visit: www.umgeo.org.
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