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News :: Civil & Human Rights : Education : Labor : Protest Activity |
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GEO Protest Thursday, Sept 2 Against Violations of New Contract |
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by ML
(No verified email address) |
01 Sep 2004
Modified: 06:11:03 PM |
Don't Let them Strangle our Union!
Protest Union Busting
Thursday, September 2, from 11:30AM to 1:30PM
Henry Administration Building (Meet on the South side) |
The Graduate Employees' Organization at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will rally against the failure of the University to live up to the contract recently ratified between it and the GEO on Thursday, September 2 from 11:30am to 1pm outside the Henry Administration Building.
Just three weeks after it was ratified and two weeks after the contract went into force with the beginning of orientation of new graduate employees for the 2004-2005 academic year, it has become blatantly obvious that the University is failing in a number of ways to live up to its legal obligations under the contract. The GEO was denied the opportunity to briefly note that it represented graduate employees at the orientation and the University has so far not otherwise announced that the GEO is their labor representative to graduate employees, as provided for in the contract.
Many graduate employees have failed to receive their tuition waivers. There are reports that some grads have been turned away from health care they sought at McKinley Health Center since the University did not waive the McKinley fee as it was obligated to under the contract. This places enormous financial hardships on graduate employees and their families. The University has offered emergency loans as a solution, but this is effectively asking its employees to apply for loans to cover for the compensation that the University is legally obligated to provide. In many cases, these loans can vastly complicate the finances of graduate employees, who are charged an origination fee on the loans for which the University has made no offer to later compensate the employees for. How would you feel if, when it payday came around, your boss told you to get a loan and the company would get back to you about your pay at some indeterminate time in the future?
The University has so far failed to pass onto its departments information on their obligations under the contract. This is likely to lead to the filing of grievances that could be avoided, except for the University's lack of good faith contract implementation, for further violations of the contract by departments who are unsure what their obligations to their graduate employees are. In fact, it has come to the attention of the GEO that the University has sent two emails to departments instructing them not to cooperate with GEO attempts to inform new graduate employees about the union.
Finally and most revealingly, the University has claimed that it is unable to begin deducting union dues, needed to finance union operations and pay the GEO's own workers, until sometime in the indeterminate future. The University claims that the problem is due to its flawed and increasingly failing Banner human resources software system. While there may be problems, the University is under legal obligations by the contract to collect dues and is in direct violation of the contract for this and the other violations noted above. If it was acting in good faith, there are a number of options that could be implemented, but blaming Banner and saying that it has no idea when it might start meeting its contract obligations is simply unacceptable, as well as being actionable in court.
There are no clauses in the contract that allow for the University to meet its obligations whenever it gets around to it. So far, the GEO is respecting the contract because it takes its obligations seriously, including the no-strike clause in it.
However, many GEO members are already wondering why the contract seemingly only applies to the union and not to the University. Informal discussions of what job actions might follow the rally and picket on Thursday have already begun in several departments, as GEO members see the University’s actions and inactions as a direct indication of the University’s lack of good faith in honoring the contract, as well as a direct attack on the union itself. After all, it was the University which dragged out negotiations on the contract for more than a year when the GEO had to repeatedly push just to schedule meetings with the University's negotiating team. These stalling tactics have left a bad taste in the mouths of many that had only begun to fade when the University chose to swat at the hornet's nest of union solidarity with its abysmal failure to live up to its part of the bargain.
The GEO is asking its members, other union members, both on campus and off, students, and the public to show up to rally in solidarity against the University's clumsy union-busting tactics on Thursday from 11:30am to 1pm at the Henry Administration Building. |
See also:
http://www.uigeo.org
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