The University of Illinois at Chicago Online GEO Orientation Presentation
Transcript
Geo is the graduate employees organization the member run labor union
union that represents all the teaching assistants and graduate assistants
at uic who have appointments between 25
and 67 percent
representing tas and gas means that we
bargain a contract through a formal
legal process with the uic
administration
generally every three years and the
contract lasts for about three years
and it covers all the 1600 tas and gas
on campus
it means that we also defend that
contract against violations through a
formal legal process called the
grievance process
so if you ever have a workplace issue
we’re who you contact
and you can do that by googling our
website you can just google uic geo
and it will pull it up and you can
contact any of the officers or staff
listed there
how we operate geo is member driven
this means that officers are elected
from the membership
and the union is run entirely by and for
the members
there’s only one staff person myself
and i answer to the membership
it means there are committees and
caucuses there’s the grievance committee
the organizing committee the stewards
committee we have various committees
we also have an international caucus for
international students organized around
issues specific to their needs and you
can join as an international member
there’s no
prohibition on joining and it does not
affect your visa
status and we have a robust
international membership here
we vote on issues including the contract
so the membership has to approve the
contact contract we negotiate
if they don’t it sends the bargaining
team back to the table
and again we bargain that contract
through formal negotiations with the
administration but we
do it in a very open way so that the
general membership
can attend those meetings and
participate
we also represent geo members in the
contractual grievance process i
mentioned earlier
and we organized to take collective
action on major issues that are
important to us
so recent issues that we’ve taken
collective action on have been
related to things such as the travel ban
for international students
we’re a social justice union so we
organize around lots of issues
you have rights as a worker you have
rights and as
your union we work together to fight for
those rights and to improve our
workplace
and we do that to everyone participating
the union is not the officers
or the staff person or the most active
members it’s everyone
so we collectively bargain a contract
that includes items like health care
wages and raises protections against
discrimination
paid sick leave personal day and
parental leave
and a grievance procedure those are just
some of the items
and we not only have to negotiate raises
and new
wins but we also have to defend things
we’ve already won
so our sister union in urbana-champaign
had to go on strike in 2018
in order to defend tuition waivers the
same university system that we bargained
with
tried to take away the tuition waivers
and again we are able to win new things
and protect existing things
only through member participation so
we win things in bargaining not through
our rhetoric
but through having lots and lots and
lots of geo members
and having them participate in the
actions we take
for our contract campaign so we win
through having high membership members
and through organizing
we also have that grievance process that
i mentioned earlier you can contact us
at grievance
uic geo dot net
if you have an issue
what we’ve won we negotiated a new
contract in april of 2019
after over a year of bargaining and
organizing
we went on strike for nearly three weeks
to win the following
in a historic contract the largest
raisins in our history
nearly double what we’ve previously won
reduction in fees
and fee freezes which then caused other
grand unions to start organizing around
those issues too more health care
coverage
transparency and appointment and
reappointment processes
so that people know why they are or not
getting renewed
and additional non-discrimination
protections and everyone should know
that we’ll start bargaining again this
spring
what we’ve won outside of the regular
contract we’ve won
protections around the covit 19
emergency
through impact bargaining which inside
higher ed wrote an article about
because we were one of the first grad
unions to do so and now others have
followed in our footsteps
we won free summer dorms for
international students because they were
stuck in the country
and unable to earn a living or take out
student loans
we won 100 coverage of emergency room er
expenses we won full campus care
coverage for covid related care
we won mental health teletherapy so that
people could receive
mental health services remotely we won
the creation of hundreds of new jobs
during the summer especially for those
international students who were stranded
in the country
we won mass for every worker this fall
the option to opt out of a bus pass for
those who prefer to drive in order to
limit their exposure to the virus
and a process to apply for one-year
funding extensions
and a commitment to funding because
on-site research was disrupted by copen
and i would say that it’s absolutely
critical that everyone join
their union at any time you know any any
year
but it’s doubly important right now
while we’re in the covid crisis
info on joining in order to join you
fill out and sign a membership card
which i’ll show you in a minute
members pay 2.4 percent of each paycheck
in membership
dues dues are fees that are
paid to the union to cover the cost of
representation
your membership is ongoing though it
goes on pause
anytime you’re not in the bargaining
unit so basically anytime that you’re
not employed
um but as long as you’re employed then
it’s continuous during that employment
and the dues are deducted automatically
and there’s a window that opens up each
august
when you can write us to drop your
membership if you choose
joining doesn’t require you to do
anything so you’re not
committed to any form of participation
though the more actively involved you
are the stronger the union is
ways to be involved include attending
our occasional membership meetings
for the general membership where we vote
and do other things
participating in actions for the
bargaining campaigns
issue campaigns etc and i’d say if
there’s nothing else that you do as a
member that’s the
single most important thing you can do
is to participate in the actions we take
to win more for you and everyone else
and you can become a steward in your
department stewards are sort of the
lifeblood of the union
they convey info between leadership and
general membership and help plan
however you don’t have to know anything
to become a steward and if you’re in
your first year that’s
great because that means you’ll be here
for a while we help people learn
and we do everything together as a
community if you’re interested in
becoming a steward
just email me at uic
geo dawn
gmail.com
how we use dues dues are used for the
following to pay for the only staff
person myself
whose work in supporting the union is
critical
so i have years of organizing and
bargaining and grievance experience and
advise and assist the members with that
work
to pay for legal counsel on major issues
we sometimes have to consult our labor
lawyer
for bargaining and grievance issues to
write an office space where we can meet
this is where we do our planning
and to pay for communications and
materials including for the fall social
which will be held by zoom this year for
safety reasons
on september 2nd from 5 to 7 pm
and the zoom link is here you can just
copy that down we will also be sending
out an
email to everyone once you receive all
of your email addresses from the
administration
so that is september 2nd 5 to 7 pm
and again link is there for you to copy
down and
we will be talking about various things
and hopefully having fun
a reminder dues are 2.4 of each paycheck
and this is the only funding we receive
making high membership
extra important why you should join
we are stronger together we will win
more in the future
the stronger we are more fee relief
higher wages
better health care coverage our power at
the bargaining table and elsewhere is
directly equivalent to the number of
members we have
the union isn’t the officers it’s not
the staff
it’s not the activists it’s all of the
membership
so our power again is directly
equivalent to how many members we have
just like other unions we only operate
on member dues and are completely
separate from the university
these allow us to be able to continue
fighting for a better workplace for all
of us
without dues there is no union joining
the union
means you have a voice and you fight for
the rights you deserve
collectively with your colleagues
including throughout the pandemic
how you join so i’m going to give you
the joining information
and then i’m going to give you a few
minutes of silence to go ahead and fill
out your membership card
so you join geo by going to
h t t p s
colon forward slash forward slash
tiny url that’s t is in tom
i is in iguana n is in nancy y is in
your
u as in umbrella r is in rascal l is in
leopard
dot com forward slash
y is in your c is in cat
six p is in paul two
as an umbrella v as in dog
eight
so once you go to that site you you’ll
fill out the
required information on the electronic
membership card
it takes about three minutes and then
the secure site
will send us your card so i’m going to
go ahead and give you a few minutes of
silence now to go ahead and fill that out
uh
i’m foreign
okay
foreign
c
and
that’s the end of our presentation thank you!
you can learn more at uic-geo.net
that’s our website
if you’ve joined welcome to your union
English (auto-generated)