Support your fellow graduate students. Attend the Residence Hall Librarian negotiations. Negotiations are open, so you are free to come and go.
Wednesday, February 12 @ 10:00 – Noon
2105C Michigan Union
Thursday, February 13 @ 2:00 – 4:00
Ostifin Room, 2nd floor West Quad
Come to the Winter 2003 GEO Membership Meetings!
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Central Campus
Thurs Feb 13, 7-8pm
Anderson Room
Michigan Union
North Campus
Wed Feb 12, 7-8pm
Boulevard Room
Pierpont Commons
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Free pizza beforehand; meetings end promptly at 8pm.
Why come? We need you to help plan a response to UM’s recent actions:
- UM unilaterally raised your prescription drug copays. A for-profit company now decides what drugs you are allowed to have, not your doctor.
- Residence Hall Librarians are bargaining to join our contract. UM says that their work is worth less than that of GSIs, and that they will be fired if they become pregnant.
- Last year, we gave up part of our wage increase to pay for improved child care access. The University is refusing to spend it.
- Some departments are hiring undergraduates to do GSI work, but not giving them benefits or tuition waivers. How does this cost-cutting affect the quality of education at UM? How does it affect your job?
GEO will be holding a MASS MEMBERSHIP MEETING:
Thursday, February 13th, 7-8 p.m.
MI Union, Anderson Room
** EMERGENCY! **
The Administration has unilaterally reduced benefits for GSIs and GSRAs after contract negotiations had already been decided. They did not consult with the Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO). Prescription benefits,
for example, were dramatically reduced (Copays have spiked). Furthermore, according to GEO representatives, undergraduates are currently being hired to teach other undergraduates, in place of grad students.
Find out more while dining on FREE PIZZA.
Demand respect for the GEO contract–organize to save these benefits!
Next Thursday, FEB 13, there will be a GEO Membership Meeting, 7-8 PM in the Michigan Union Anderson Room. More details to come at this Friday’s grad student meeting, but one of the main issues concerns the current bargaining campaign for Residence Hall Librarians (RHLs).
There are 12 hall librarians at the University, one for each campus residence hall. The librarians are School of Information grad students; they work approximately 30 hours/wk and are required to live in the dorms. They are paid $5,500/yr, receive no benefits, no tuition waiver (compared to $19,762 for 0.75 FTE under GEO contract). To improve their working conditions, the RHLs have elected to join GEO, and have been in negotiations with the University since January. As usual, the proceedings have been difficult, and they need our support.
As the 2002 GEO contract campaign amply demonstrated, there’s strength in numbers–please support your fellow workers.
Bargaining sessions are in West Quad Hall, the Ostifin Room, on the 2nd Floor next to the Hall Library. If you enter on Thompson Street, you go to your right upstairs, and the room is in the middle of the hall on your left. SOMEONE WILL BE AT THE DOORWAY TO LET YOU IN.
If you have further questions about supporting, please contact GEO Staff Organizer Glen Bessemer
Many people have been asking about the new childcare benefits. The main concern regards the FAFSA: according to the Office of Financial Aid’s web site, the due date for this form has already passed.
The Office of Financial Aid has told the GEO that it recommends that parents fill out the FAFSA immediately. The office indicated that filing late does affect ability to get the childcare subsidy, but that late applications will be considered.Click here for the Office of Financial Aid web site’s section on childcare.
Note that the new contract is not yet in force. As of 3/21/02 the subsidy amounts from the prior contract were listed on the site.