Where Does Your GEO Dues Money Go?
GEO’s budget is divided into three main categories of expenditures: our basic operating expenses, the amounts we pay for the staff who support GEO’s programs, and the money we spend in support of the programs of AFT Michigan and AFT National (who, in turn, provide invaluable support of GEO and its GSI and GSRA members).
We work hard to spend our dues money judiciously and in conformity with goals and values that are endorsed by GEO’s stewards council.
The people who make decisions about where GEO’s money goes are volunteers (officers get a stipend of $50 per month during the academic year).
Most of GEO’s budget goes for basic operating expenses. These include the cost of renting our office and keeping things like lights, the phone lines, and DSL service going (we share our space on East Liberty with our sister union, the Lecturers’ Employee Organization (LEO), which both saves money and makes it easier for each of us to keep up with what’s going on with the other), the production of things like our annual planner and the Know Your Contract handbook, the visibility- raising GEO T-shirts that pepper campus during bargaining years, legal fees (we’re judicious about when we use an attorney; most grievances are resolved without our needing to talk to one), costs associated with training and conferences GEO members attend (these are always discussed and approved at stewards’ council— and these conferences usually involve crashing on the couches of graduate employee unionists in other cities, to give you a sense of the scale), and the costs of disability accommodations for GEO events.
Typically, about a quarter of GEO’s budget pays for the salaries and benefits of our own staffers. We have two highly-trained professional staff organizers, who work to keep GEO members informed about what is going on inside our union. They maintain our databases, answer member inquiries and support GEO committees, but they also spend significant time in UM departments, meeting GEO members where they work so that issues that come up can be dealt with quickly and reasonably. GEO’s staff are paid on a scale that corresponds to the GEO contract rate for GSIs and GSSAs, annualized and with some modest increases for our staff as they acquire more skills on the job. We provide health benefits roughly equivalent to those GEO members and GSRAs receive, though we don’t have direct ability to purchase the PremierCare plan for graduate employees.
During the GSRA organizing campaign—after GEO’s initial assessment demonstrated wide interest in an RA union–GEO, AFT Michigan, and AFT have also shared (roughly in proportion to our respective resources) the salaries and benefits of staff who have worked to reach out to the roughly 2000 GSRAs in the bargaining unit.
Per Capita Fees Paid to AFT Michigan and AFT National
The final category of expenditure, which makes up about a third of GEO’s budget, is the payment of membership dues and fees (also known as “per capita fees,” as they are assessed on the basis of the number of people in the bargaining unit) to the American Federation of Teachers and AFT Michigan.
Generally speaking, our relationships with AFT and AFT Michigan are an incredibly important part of GEO’s ability to advocate for graduate employees’ working conditions, and for the conditions under which the University as a whole is able to do its research and teaching work.
As these are usually the parts of the GEO budget with which members are least familiar, we provide a pretty exhaustive explanation of what this money pays for here.
AFT Michigan
Our connection to AFT Michigan is part of GEO’s strength. AFT Michigan staff help GEO members negotiate contracts, resolve grievances, conduct strategic planning, and maintain our ties to the wider academic labor movement in the state.
Through AFT Michigan, we have access to a knowledgeable labor attorney; AFT Michigan cost-shares with GEO on legal expenses related to enforcing our members’ job security and job-related civil rights.
AFT Michigan lobbies in Lansing on a variety of issues that are directly related to our priorities as graduate employees and as members of the University community. For instance, AFT Michigan has been a strong voice for increased funding for Michigan colleges and universities, and against restrictions on the academic freedom of researchers and teachers at the university level. Typically, the state federation lobbies for the same things UM’s own lobbyists advocate in Lansing— and because AFT Michigan’s connection to the larger labor movement means that it can mobilize voters (something UM prohibited by law from doing), that lobbying capacity has unique importance.
During election years, AFT Michigan provides members with information on the state-level candidates who have been endorsed by the union’s executive board (on which graduate employees have a designated seat). These endorsements are nonpartisan and are made on the basis of candidates’ credentials and voting records on education and labor issues.
When ballot issues are directly relevant to education or labor, AFT Michigan also makes recommendations to members about them. (On the recommendation of members who are life-sciences researchers, for instance, AFT Michigan endorsed the ballot initiative making stem-cell research legal in Michigan.)
Our per capita fees, together with those of the 33,000 other members of AFT Michigan, help pay for all of these programs. In Michigan, it is not legal to use dues money for contributions to campaigns for elected officials. Neither GEO nor AFT Michigan ever give dues money to candidates for office.
AFT National
The national AFT is also a critical resource for GEO and our members; AFT’s vigorous constitutional support of local union autonomy is an important piece of GEO’s organizational DNA.
AFT’s higher education department conducts research related to the working conditions of teachers and researchers, and to the learning conditions of undergraduate and graduate students. When we have a question like “Where else have RAs raised issues about lab safety, and what happened after that?” the higher ed department is one of the first places we call.
AFT National funds and organizes the Alliance of Graduate Employee Locals (AGEL), a coalition of the 21 graduate employee locals and four other graduate employee organizing campaigns affiliated with AFT. AGEL is a clearinghouse for information and support of our organizing and contract enforcement efforts. Twice each year, AFT graduate employee locals meet for an AGEL conference where we exchange ideas and information—lots of GEO members have received important training at AGEL, and we’ve participated in organizing drives on other university campuses during these conferences, too.
AFT’s lobbying and legislative departments are a strong direct connection to the things that happen in Washington and that affect us every day at UM. GEO and the other locals in AGEL provide input to these departments via the two graduate employee seats on AFT’s Higher Education Program and Policy Council, AFT’s official policymaking body, which is composed of 30 leaders of higher education locals throughout the US. Two of the four past holders of the graduate-employee seats on the PPC have been GEO members.
AFT has lobbied successfully for increases to need-based federal student aid, for fairness in the design and application of visa requirements for international students, and–partly because AFT also has a division of health care employees–for increased funding of health care research, like that conducted at UM. AFT also took a strong position in support of UM during the affirmative action lawsuits.
During election years, the national AFT, like AFT Michigan at the state level, provides members with information on endorsed candidates for national office. Once in a while, GEO’s connections to AFT (and to our members of Congress) have much more direct effects on GEO members. In the recent past, for example, we helped resolve the concern of a member whose return to the US from her home country had been delayed by visa problems. Our phone call to the AFT higher ed department produced information we were able to convey to US Representative John Dingell, whose office then contacted the Department of State–which resolved the visa issue in time for our member to return to work as planned.
AFT National’s legal defense program also helps to cover the cost of GEO legal expenses related to maintaining our members’ job security and job-related civil rights.
Our per capita fees, together with those of 1.5 million other AFT members, help pay for all of these programs. (As a side benefit, AFT–like most other national unions- -negotiates discounts for members on a variety of services, including things as random as hotel and car reservations and as critical as legal services and health insurance for times when you’re not covered by a UM insurance plan. GEO members who’ve used these benefits have reported that the cost savings more than make up the amount of their annual membership dues. We still think the other things we get for our per caps are far more valuable!)
