The Administration’s bargaining team unveiled their “final comprehensive package†on Friday, March 11. The GEO Bargaining Team, and the members assembled to hear the proposal, were surprised and deeply disappointed by the proposal’s lack of response to the issues raised by the Union over the last four months.
The Administration proposal:
• Refused GEO proposal that all GSIs should all make the same hourly wage;
• Refused to lock-in health care costs and services for the life of the contract;
• Rejected GEO proposal that international GSI’s should be able to take a pre-test before being required to attend English language training;
• Refused to eliminate discriminatory disparities between same-sex and married couples’ benefits, let alone protect them from legal challenge;
• Refused to eliminate the explicit transgender exclusion in the MCare insurance plan;
• Rejected GEO proposals to allow international parents and those with older children access to the child care subsidy;
• Proposed raises (2%,2%,2.5%,2.5%) that wouldn’t even keep pace with inflation;
In a highly unusual move this late in negotiations, the Admin team also made several very aggressive new proposals that would create sanctions against any member who was absent from work on the day another union was on strike, including docked pay, cutting off benefits, and being fired; and also proposed setting the contract to expire at the end of April 2009, after most union members will have finished work and left town.
For more info, see the Press Release dated 3.14.05 and this week’s edition of the Graduate Student Worker.
Comments are closed