Graduate Employees Union of Portland State University

Shout out to all who were able to attend the bargaining session on Friday, April 14th! Always makes a big difference having people in the room. We will be bargaining again this Friday, 04/21/2017, in Market Center Building room 541 from 9am – 4pm!  Come to our pre-bargaining meeting at Park Ave Cafe at 8am!

We came prepared with stacks on stacks of proposals:

• Appointments
• Personnel Records
• Complete Agreement
• Layoff
• Academic Freedom
• University rights

And The University provided

• Evaluations
• Grievance and Arbitration

During the session we were able to provide a counter to admin’s Evaluations article, while admin provided a counter to our Appointments. We are getting close on Evaluations! The only substantive change we suggested in our counter was to require notice before any classroom observation that was to be used for evaluative purposes. Hopefully this coming week we will be able to reach a tentative agreement (TA).

There are still some hangups on Appointments, specifically regarding notice of non-reappointment and not giving GA work to non-GAs. We are working on yet more creative solutions to these problems which we hope the University will agree with.

This coming Friday we are expecting to receive admin’s counters on University Rights, Layoff, Evaluations, Personnel Records, Complete Agreement, Academic Freedom, and Term of Agreement.

There has been an ongoing oscillation between “will” and “shall”. We have suggested the use of “shalt” but that didn’t fly too well.

Come observe this Friday in Market Center Building room 541 from 9am – 4pm. We can not express how powerful having you all there has been and how rejuvenating it is for us on the bargaining team.

Welcome to Spring Term, GEU! We hope you all had the opportunity to travel to fun, sunny, and warm places.

On Friday, our bargaining team had our first bargaining session after spring break. Each team came to the session with multiple new articles and counter proposals from past sessions. Our team introduced proposals on evaluation, discipline & discharge, and a proposal on grievances & arbitration. Administration presented university rights, layoff, and personnel files.

We also presented another counterproposal on appointments. While this is one of the most complex articles we have, each proposal we are getting closer to finishing this article. However, the tension in the room keeps increasing. The Administration Team repeatedly pushed back on several items:

• An employee deserves to be notified when they do not get selected for a position or they are not renewed.
• That employing units will not replace GA positions with hourly positions, except in emergency situations.

Good news though: it seems we have reached shared language and are in agreement on most of the workload and summer session articles. We plan on signing these articles once we have reached shared language on appointments.

This process is slow going, but we are working hard to complete this collective bargaining agreement as soon as possible. How can you help? Come observe bargaining on Friday in the Market Center Building room 651, anytime from 9am – 4pm.

Once again, a huge shout out to our members who came to the session to observe. As per usual, your presence helped us tremendously!

Kevin Reynolds (PSU Vice President of Finance & Administration) joined at the beginning of the session to give a general overview of the Portland State budget process.

Definitions

We finally settled on definitions of Graduate Assistants, and the three types: Graduate Administrative Assistants, Graduate Research Assistants, and Graduate Teaching Assistants.

Appointments

We are continuing to work through one of the longest and most complex articles in our contract, Appointments. Appointments will include GAship eligibility, notice of appointments, and the role of assistantships. Each team has, again, exchanged language a few times, and we are closer to finding common language that protects the interests of GAs and gives clarity to what a GA position entails.  

In particular, Admin’s most recent proposal includes language in our Notice of Appointment that lists estimated health insurance and fees. Having this information all in one place will help us more accurately estimate our take home pay after these costs when deciding whether or not to accept a GA position.  We’re excited to make progress towards a more transparent employment process for GAs, and look forward to making more.

Workload

Our team presented more language on workload today and allowed questions from the Administration Team. In general, both teams agree that GA’s should not be overworked. We are still negotiating what the enforcement mechanism will be.

Coming Up

We’ve spent the past term working on articles related to non-economic issues.  Recognizing that issues such as health care and wage increases to keep up with cost of living will take up a lot of time at the table, we’re advocating for a transition to bargaining over articles related to financial issues next month.  We’ll let all y’all know as we begin these discussions, so everyone has a chance to speak out, participate, and advocate for our future financial security and healthcare.

Come see our next bargaining session: April 7th, 2017 between 9am and 4pm, location TBD. We will be discussing evaluations, discipline and discharge, and building a grievance process.

Want to get involved in bargaining? Contact us at bargaining@pdxgeu.org

The bargaining team met with Administration twice last week on Monday and Friday. We again wanted to give a shout out to all the GEU members who stopped by to watch both sessions. When GEU members are in the room, the mood was noticeably more light hearted. It’s also great to have you all in our caucus sessions, there have been some valuable contributions we wouldn’t have thought out without the input of our observers. We want you to keep showing up to your presence is valuable, for our process and for our brainstorming.

We are continuing to work through one of the longest and most complex articles in our contract, appointments. Appointments will include GAship eligibility, notice of appointments, and the role of assistantships. Each team has exchanged language a few times, and we are closer to finding common language that protects the interests of GAs and gives clarity to what a GA position entails.

Appointment Notification

Notification continues to be a major conversation topic as we work for streamlined and uniform process that gives GAs clarity around the position they’re being offered. Our main push is to have all financial information relevant for GAs in one place, the appointment notification, in the form of a clearly written letter. This would mean each GA would receive salary, number of pay periods, working hours, tuition remission, and estimated fees and health insurance costs in one letter when receiving an appointment. This is key to GA’s being able to calculate their financial situation easily and without having to track down information from different places.

Workload

We have received language back from the Administration on Workloads, and are working on putting together a counter offer to discuss at our next meeting. We’re pushing to guarantee that when a GA works or will work over FTE:

1) the GA can prove this using a form the University will recognize as evidence, and

2) that GA’s supervisor is required to make a change in duties, process, FTE, or otherwise reduce workload.

We’re also pushing to establish a shared understanding in our contract with PSU that for GAs who teach, bigger course sections mean more work, and multiple course sections (especially when the courses are different) also mean more work, and our FTEs and staffing should reflect that.

We want to hear from you! bargaining@pdxgeu.org How well has PSU kept you informed leading up to an appointment or reappointment? Should our appointment letters include all fee information?

Join us next time! We will be meeting at 8am, Friday, March 17th the Park Avenue Cafe, 1525 SW Park Ave for a pre-bargaining meeting. Also, you can observe bargaining this Friday (3/17), anytime from 9am – 4pm, in the University Room (651) at Market Center Building.

The bargaining team met with the Administration last Friday. First, we want to give a shout out to all the GEU members who stopped by to watch the session. The tone changed substantially as soon as we had observers, from hostile to cautious/reserved. We need to keep showing up to hold them accountable, and not allow them to delay decision-making.

We are slowly working through one of the longest and most complex articles in our contract, appointments. Appointments will include GAship eligibility, notice of appointments, and the role of assistantships. Each team has presented language and we are working towards combining the best of both.

Appointment Notification

While we are making progress, we are getting considerable push back from the Administration team on creating consistent policies that all GA’s are able to rely on. A particular point of discontent was our language for notice of appointment. We presented language that said, under normal circumstances we deserve at least 25 working days to find out about if we have jobs. 25 working days allows us to plan our schedule and finances, figure out housing or childcare, or find alternative employment if we didn’t receive a graduate assistantship. The PSU Administration resisted this immediately, saying it would just too hard to implement and leave them vulnerable to too many grievances.

Mandatory Fees

We also discussed including approximations of mandatory fees and PSU health insurance costs in GA appointment letters.  For a GA enrolled in PSU’s health plan and taking 9 credits, these costs are approximately $422 per month. The median monthly GA stipend is $1159 per month, and we should know that we can expect to take home $422 less than that ($737 per month), because we need to know if we can pay our rent. When you receive a job offer, you should be able to tell how much money you’re taking home by reading the offer letter.  This is just basic employment transparency, but nevertheless, the PSU Administration resisted, claiming that fees and health insurance are not employee issues.

We want to hear from you! bargaining@pdxgeu.org How well has PSU kept you informed leading up to an appointment or reappointment? Should our appointment letters include all fee information?

Join us next time! We will be meeting at 8am, Monday, March 6th the Park Avenue Cafe, 1525 SW Park Ave  for a pre-bargaining meeting. Also, you can observe bargaining, anytime from 9am – 4pm, in the University Room (651) at Market Center Building.