Making history
As one of the first unions of graduate student workers in the United States, GEO members have blazed a trail for workers’ rights in higher ed. Throughout our half-century of action, GEO members have led the way on premium-free health insurance, tuition waivers, transgender healthcare, harassment protections, police abolition and more!
“Teaching Fellows” (TFs, as they were then called) first began to organize in 1970, when the University Teaching Fellows’ Union (TFU) collected enough signatures to warrant an election by the Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC). In the same year, Political Science TFs walked out on their discussion sections to protest departmental cuts to TF allocations. In 1971, however, MERC denied the petition and ruled that TFs alone did not constitute an appropriate collective bargaining unit. While MERC did not offer an opinion on the student/employee distinction, it agreed with the University administration’s argument that even if TFs were employees, they should be part of a unit that included Research and Staff Assistants; no election was conducted. Faced with the prospect of a lengthy court battle, the TFs temporarily abandoned their organizing efforts.
A number of administrative decisions in the summer of 1973 sparked a second organizing drive. In the wake of a student strike to protest a 24% tuition increase and an organized meeting of 500 TFs, Teaching Fellows formed the Organization of Teaching Fellows (OTF) to protest the increase. Other concerns included the loss of TFs’ in-state tuition status, new residency requirements, and the lack of a pay increase. OTF, loosely associated with the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), attempted to begin negotiations with president Robben Fleming, but were rebuffed; the Administration would not bargain unless OTF were officially recognized by MERC. Discussions of a possible strike were well underway when the Administration discovered a $3.75 million budget overflow and announced plans to grant a sizable pay increase for Teaching Fellows. TFs subsequently failed to authorize a strike, but continued their organizing efforts. They joined Research and Staff Assistants to form the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO), and demanded recognition as the sole bargaining agent for all Graduate Student Assistants (by this time, the Administration was referring to TFs as “Teaching Assistants”). This time the Administration agreed to an immediate MERC certification election. GEO was officially certified on April 15, 1974 after an overwhelming vote of 807 in favor, 424 against.
Negotiations for a first contract began in June 1974 and proceeded slowly; in January 1975 the Administration and GEO went into mediation. When this process failed to yield results, GEO offered to go to binding arbitration. The Administration declined. With all avenues of negotiation exhausted, the Union membership voted to strike (689 in favor, 193 against) at the beginning of the cold month of February 1975. Hundreds of GEO members began picketing University buildings early on the morning of February 11, the start of what was to become a month-long strike. More than 50% of undergraduates boycotted classes and joined picket lines in the early days of the strike. Michigan’s Teamster locals recognized the strike and instructed their members not to drive trucks through picket lines. While agreements on non-discrimination and affirmative action were finalized in the first week of the strike, the important issues of economics, agency shop, and the right to grieve the size of appointment fractions for Winter term 1974 took longer. After a hearing before a MERC-appointed fact-finder and an extra day of intensive picketing to ensure no reprisals for strike activity, the GEO membership overwhelmingly ratified the proposed contract with a vote of 622 in favor, 12 against. The strike ended. The contract was signed and took effect on March 14, 1975.
After much thought and debate the Union membership voted to affiliate with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and preparations for bargaining a second contract commenced. Negotiations began in March 1976, but GEO suffered from internal problems. A combination of organizational weakness, poor communication, and internal disagreements inhibited the Union’s ability to present a unified mobilized front. A strike vote, initiated when other avenues of negotiation were exhausted, failed. The membership voted to return to the table and basically agree to the Administration’s proposed contract. This concession would have severely set back both employment security for Research Assistants and affirmative action. However, when GEO’s negotiators returned to the table, willing to make concessions, the Administration refused to sign its own contract. They demanded that GEO drop two pending grievances brought up under the previous contract. As this would have undermined the contractual right to due process, GEO instead filed an unfair labor practice complaint with MERC. In turn, the Administration’s attorney contended that the Administration could not commit an unfair labor practice because GSAs were not really employees and thus were not covered by the rules of collective bargaining. These positions led the Administration and the Union into a long round of court battles. MERC administrative law judge Shlomo Sperka initially ruled in favor of GEO in August 1977, affirming the right of student employees to bargain collectively. While the decision forced the Administration to recognize Teaching and Staff Assistants as employees, it excluded Research Assistants from the bargaining unit on the grounds that their work was “directly related to educational goals”; they were students, not workers. A long series of appeals ensued, ending in November 1981. After losing their last appeal, the Administration finally signed the 1976 contract on November 23, 1981.
GEO made significant headway in contracts signed in 1983 and 1985, convincing the Administration to discuss tuition and salary as part of the same package and to require departments to offer TA training. GEO gained formal recognition of Affirmative Action, extended the period of eligibility for dental coverage, and won significant raises in both salary and tuition waivers. In 1986, bargaining was more difficult; after relatively cordial negotiations for the previous contract, the Administration team stalled, delayed, and dragged their feet for months in an effort to wear the Union down (these tactics seemed to be the result of a turnover in the Administration, the hiring of James Duderstadt, who was the former Provost and Vice-President for Academic Affairs, and his new economic priorities). After mediation with a State-appointed mediator–and rallies outside of the Fleming Building–the Union and the Administration reached an agreement. A short few months after that contract was settled, GEO was back at the table trying to hammer out a contract for 1987-89. Negotiations were greatly complicated by the new tax bill passed by Congress, which lowered tax rates for high-income brackets but compensated with a great increase in taxes for students receiving tuition waivers. GEO estimated that if there were no change in salary, most TAs stood to lose between $800 and $1500 per year. The Administration offered little: a 3% or 4% raise, and no change in the tuition waiver. The Union was also interested in establishing paid TA training and limiting class size.
As the negotiations ground on into 1987, both sides made some concessions, but the Administration’s best offers still left TAs facing deep cuts in pay. Membership involvement increased through several mass actions, including informational pickets and a large rally on April 1. These events seemed to have some effect on the Administration, as their bargaining offers improved immediately after each action, but its position at the beginning of April was still unacceptable. MERC scheduled mediation between the Administration and the Union for April 8. A strike vote authorized the steering committee to call a strike the day after, if necessary. Faced with this prospect in mediation, Administration negotiators gave in almost immediately, offering a 22% increase in tuition waiver, the largest increase in spending on TAs in its history. Unfortunately, because of the large tax increase, this resulted only in a slight increase in net income for TAs.
Mixed results marked the negotiations for the 1989-91 contract. The Administration surprised GEO by refusing to discuss job security or class size limits but offering a large salary increase. The bargaining team was uncertain about what to do; many TAs had indicated that job security was an important issue, but attendance at Union meetings and rallies had been low. The Union settled for a 9% salary increase and improvements in dental benefits. Negotiations lasted a mere six weeks.
Negotiations for the 1991-93 contract were again prolonged and difficult. The Administration was reluctant to make any significant changes and bargaining lasted for eight months. The membership was significantly interested and mobilized, voting for and participating in work stoppages on April 4 and from April 17-19, 1991, the first job actions since the 1975 strike. Most significantly, GEO won partial tuition waivers for TAs with low employment assignments.
Bargaining for the 1993-1996 contract took, once again, several months and was notable for a stern intransigence on the part of the Administration. GEO proposed a healthy salary increase of 15.7% as the center of a campaign for a livable wage for TA’s. (At the time, the average TA took home $729/month while the University Office of Financial Aid calculated graduate student living expenses at $829/month; GEO’s proposal would have closed that $110 gap exactly.) GEO also made proposals for Domestic Partner health coverage, pay for TA training, childcare funding, and class size. The Administration responded by pleading poverty and offering a below-inflation salary increase and a new, but significantly weaker benefits package.
For some time, many graduate students had been turning down prestigious fellowships (which came with little or no health insurance), and choosing, instead, to teach under a union contract that guaranteed good benefits. In an attempt to improve the health benefits of fellowships, the Administration developed a new benefit plan, “GradCare.” However, the Administration wanted to pay for GradCare by eliminating TAs’ other benefits options and forcing them all onto GradCare, which would have also substantially increased out-of-pocket medical costs for TAs. Not only would GradCare have provided worse coverage, but it would have also had serious political implications. By switching TAs from the benefit package they share with faculty to a package “designed for students,” the Administration would have endangered the distinction between the employment of graduate students as teachers and their status as students. This distinction is crucial for the legal recognition and continued existence of the Union. Membership mobilization against this effective cut in benefits was robust and adamant. GEO held rallies, informational pickets and “GEO Pharmacies” (with the tag-line “The Union is in”) to build support. An 87% “yes” vote authorized the Steering Committee to call a strike if necessary. Membership support for other issues was less strong, however, and the Union settled for a salary increase and a ceiling on an $80 registration fee. GEO now had a three-year contract, with a 3% raise in each year.
GEO’s organizing efforts then centered on moving GEO from a “service model” union–in which the membership saw the Union as something that works for them when they have problems and in which they play no great part–to an “organizing model,” in which the membership plays a consistently active role in determining the Union’s direction and priorities. A shift to a three-year contract, after decades of signing two-year contracts, gave GEO the time to build a more cohesive and active membership. In that interim period, GEO addressed the quality of TA training and worked to fight discrimination, both by attempting to increase the number of TAs of Color and by addressing various forms of racism that TAs of Color faced in the classroom.
Academic year 1994-1995 saw the most effective pre-contract organizing drive since the 1975 strike. GEO used an interview-like organizing tool to garner the thoughts, opinions, and desires of several hundred members. In February, approximately 130 members met to discuss what issues should be incorporated into the bargaining platform–areas of discussion were Wages & Workload; Hiring Process, Job Security & Classification; TAs of Color; Academic Excellence; and Benefits, Waivers & Fees. The resulting bargaining platform was ratified by a March membership meeting with more than 250 members in attendance.
In the 1996 contract, members wanted not just better pay, but other changes such as fair treatment for International GSIs and same-sex domestic partners, opportunities for students of color to teach, and more control over training and hiring. Because of the Union’s organizing strength, GEO was able to make progress on these issues at the bargaining table. But it was only when the Union threatened to carry out a two-day walkout that the Administration agreed to offer compensation for International GSI summer training. Members talked to faculty and convinced many of them to cancel their classes. They also spoke with undergraduates and convinced many of them not to attend classes. Most importantly, however, members talked to each other about how important the issues were to them and why we needed to stand together and demonstrate to the Administration and the University community that the treatment of any of our members is an issue for all of our members.
This round of negotiations was centered on winning a living wage. GEO’s research showed that our members’ teaching work accounted for 50% of the undergraduate class hours taught at the university and this important work needed to be acknowledged and respected. Furthermore, the union estimated that members spent an average of 40% of their wages on rent and wanted a wage that would account for the cost of living in Ann Arbor. Another key demand was revisiting the guaranteed compensation for the mandatory three week pre-semester training for International GSIs (25% of the bargaining unit), as the university had reneged on its previous commitment. GEO’s bargaining discussions with members generated 18 proposals to bring to the table in the fall of 1998.
Negotiations began with a mass meeting and a rally of over 300 members. Attending in solidarity were over 40 locked-out workers of the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, who had been engaged in a labor struggle at their newspapers for three years. When bargaining began, GEO initially agreed to the administration’s request for closed bargaining sessions, meaning only the bargaining teams would be there. The union’s position was that with this format the administration would more quickly reveal their true positions (i.e. no), rather than drag out negotiations for months in front of our members. During that time, over 50 members held three sit-ins outside the bargaining room. When negotiations became bogged down on some of our central bargaining demands, including our wage proposal, GEO opened the bargaining sessions for all members to attend. Dozens of members attended some sessions and participated in the union’s frequent caucus discussions.
The contract expired on Feb 1, 1999 and the union agreed to contract extensions throughout February. Another mass meeting of over 300 members authorized a “job action authorization” ballot, a membership-wide vote over the next 10 days, with the union receiving a 75% yes vote. GEO then held another membership meeting to decide which issues were the most important and that the members would potentially strike over. The living wage and IGSI training issues remained critical. A disappointment to many members was the union dropping a set of Affirmative Action proposals. This was done partly to avoid compromising the university’s legal defense of an ongoing Affirmative Action lawsuit, and moreover, GEO was committed to continuing that fight outside the contract.
GEO held a two-day walkout in March which was fairly successful, with hundreds of members on the picket line and many classes cancelled or moved off campus. The union’s outreach to professors and students was helpful as many of them supported the walkout. GEO also received good press coverage from the job action including live coverage from two TV stations at the picket lines.Throughout this campaign, the union maintained a policy of not granting interviews to the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press scab reporters.
The union entered another round of intense bargaining with renewed energy from the walkout and a credible threat of an extended strike. GEO also secured solidarity commitments from the Teamsters and construction unions to stop work in an extended strike. Furthermore, there was a major public miscalculation by the administration when they held a press conference and wrongly declared there was an impasse in negotiations. This was intended to coerce the union into mediation, a common tactic. But GEO denied there was an impasse and made it clear it was willing to continue talks.
GEO won a new contract largely on its terms. This included a guaranteed 10.5% wage increase over three years, or the faculty increase if higher. A major achievement was the shift of 500 lower-paid members (one third of the bargaining unit) to a higher work assignment level, which came with a 25% wage increase but minimal increase in work. The union also achieved a Memorandum of Understanding on partial compensation for the IGSI training, and an agreement that made it easier for GSIs to get dental coverage.
At the turn of the twenty-first century, GEO had a more than decade run of activism and consistent contract gains that continued into the early 2000s. In 2002 a one-day walkout secured GEO members a childcare subsidy. In 2006, GEO members won some of the first Trans Inclusive Health benefits in the country. In 2008 GEO members, dissatisfied with the fact that their stipends were far below the cost of living in Ann Arbor, began one of their most ambitious contract campaigns in years. Large rallies and an effective grade-in kept pressure on the University.
Ultimately, GEO members had one of their largest job actions in years, calling for a two-day walkout. The first day saw large crowds and some of the University construction sites were shut down when workers refused to cross the GEO picket line. The walkout was so effective that UM ultimately agreed to a 13.2% increase in wages over 3 years for its GSIs, healthcare for all fractions, and domestic partner coverage. In the 2011 contract year, GEO won a GSI specific disability accommodations office so that instructors did not have to utilize informal channels to get the access they needed. Given the recession, the Union decided to push for only modest increases in compensation and did not have a major walkout.
In 2011, GEO began a campaign to unionize Graduate Student Research Assistants (GSRAs) on campus. A large number of graduate students in laboratories across the campus signed union cards. The Union was able to get the UM Board of Regents to formally declare that it considered its GSRAs to be employees, in clear contrast to the 1981 ruling that said they were not. In response to this, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank, urged the new, more right-wing Michigan legislature to push a law making it illegal for GSRAs to be part of a union. The law passed and GSRAs lost their right to unionize in the state of Michigan, ending GEO’s campaign to add GSRAs to the bargaining unit.
In December of 2012, the legislature also passed a “Right to Work” law during a lame duck session. The purpose of the new law is to require unions to represent people who pay no dues, thus depriving unions of vital financial resources and weakening them over time. In response to the “Right to Work” law, GEO engaged in a short but intense contract battle with the Administration in the Winter semester of 2013. The University saw this as an opportunity to take away job security language in the GEO contract, as well as decrease GSI pay. In response, GEO members walked away from the bargaining table, content to bargain in 2014 and possibly strike. The University withdrew the worst of its proposals, and GEO accepted a new four-year agreement which protected it from “Right to Work” until its expiration on May 1, 2017.
GEO entered its 2016-17 contract campaign year with several goals: to strengthen the University of Michigan’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Initiatives through the bargaining process; to gain new contractual rights for our members; and to prepare for the transition into “Right to Work.” To achieve these goals, GEO began to organize massive member participation. Months of negotiations went by without movement from the Administration on any of the proposals. In particular, the University ignored GEO’s proposal to create DEI GSSA positions with full union pay and benefits. At the end of the term, after little movement from the University, GEO members organized for a work stoppage with an overwhelming “Yes” on a two-day walkout ballot. Volunteers signed up hundreds of members for picket shifts in preparation for the walkout. Eventually, the pressure from the impending walkout was enough to bring the Administration back to the bargaining table and offer GEO six DEI GSSA positions, 3.35% annual raises, a $700 yearly cap on mental health co-pays, two additional weeks of paid parental leave, and an hours cap for International GSIs with visa restrictions. The membership voted to ratify the new contract on April 14, 2017.
The University of Michigan was not prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic. While classes went remote in Winter 2020, the Administration chose to bring students & workers back for in-person learning in Fall 2020, before tests, let alone vaccines, were widely available. That summer, a group of rank-and-file members came together to form the COVID Caucus and organize workers to fight for their health and safety
When it became clear that the Administration was bringing students back without adequate safety measures in place, workers prepared to strike. In the context of the historic George Floyd uprisings that summer, workers saw that
campus safety required a different approach to policing as much as COVID-19. With a Strike Authorization Vote passing by 80%, workers walked off the job on September 8th, 2020 demanding expanded COVID testing, the right to
remote work, a more flexible childcare subsidy, cuts to the campus cops’ budget, and an end to the expanded use of policing to ‘enforce’ pandemic safety compliance.
The Strike for Safe Campus soon became GEO members’ longest strike since the 1970s. Taking place outside the context of a contract campaign, GEO members were willing to violate the ‘no strike-clause’ in their newly minted
contract and the State of Michigan’s ban on public-sector strikes. Members voted to reject a tentative agreement backed by their impact bargaining team and voted, again by an 80% margin, to extend the strike into a second
week. Facing down a lawsuit from the University and having secured important concessions on both COVID safety and policing, workers voted to end the strike on September 16th.
By 2023, workers in the United States were facing a series of crises. Inflation led to a sky-rocketing cost of living (especially in expensive Ann Arbor), universities were reckoning with their failure to address widespread sexual harassment, transgender rights were coming under assault in Republican states. Grad workers at the University of Michigan were hardly immune to these issues, and voted to centre their 2023 contract campaign on affordability and dignity. Members formed dozens of working groups to develop over 60 contract proposals, including a living wage, transitional funding for workers experiencing harassment, an unarmed non-police emergency response, and expanded benefits for parents, transgender workers, disabled workers, and international students.
In a shift versus past campaigns, member organizers committed to having a majority of members attend open bargaining sessions to see negotiations for themselves. The University fought back, trying to keep members out of the bargaining room. Members, however, were committed to transparency. By organizing a series of escalating actions, they forced the University to concede to open bargaining. Over the course of the campaign, over one thousand workers attended at least one bargaining session.
Workers were not happy with what they saw at the table: University representatives consistently refusing to find solutions to the serious problems grads were facing. It became clear to workers that they would need to apply
pressure to University if they were to win a living wage and dignified working conditions. On March 29th, workers
voted to strike by a margin of 95%.
Workers walked off the job, cancelling classes and refusing to grade. With no end date set for the strike, workers prepared to stay on the picket lines for the long haul. When the University filed for a
legal injunction to force workers back on the job, GEO members defeated it in court. The University withheld pay from striking workers, but GEO members organized a strike fund to distribute nearly half a million dollars
to workers in need. With grade deadlines looming, the University chose to
fabricate hundreds of grades rather than settle the strike and put GSIs back to work. With the Fall semester looming, the University finally conceded, agreeing to record raises, a new transitional funding programs for
grads, and significant victories for parents, transgender workers, disabled workers, and international students. After
hundreds of local and national media outlets covering the events, solidarity from organizations and public figures of all stripes, and nearly 5 months on strike—the longest work action in the history of GEO—members ratified
their contract and returned to work.
The Present
Organizing in Right to Work
And bringing the collective…
GEO is operating under Right to Work laws, which allows GSIs and GSSAs to receive the benefits and protections of the contract without contributing to their union representation. Nevertheless, the Union is committed to pushing for a more equitable university for graduate students and the wider campus community. We are using this new environment as an opportunity to redouble our organizing efforts and focus on building our collective power for the fights ahead.
