Calls for change are brewing within one of the largest unions at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. As the pandemic continues to march on, graduate student workers say the university isn’t doing enough to meet their needs and defend their well-being.
The Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) represents graduate students working at the University of Illinois. That includes people studying at the University who work in classrooms helping teach courses, as well as researchers and visiting scholars from around the world.
The GEO maintains one of the most prominent academic labor agreements with the university, a five-year contract for fair treatment, pay, and benefits. The union last bargained for that contract in 2017, meaning it will sit across the table from the administration to form a new agreement this year.
But a lot has changed since 2017, namely a global pandemic entering its third year, and GEO members are hoping to win some conditions that reflect those changes.
“We’re still worried about the numbers being higher than they’ve ever been on campus,” said Lesley Owens, one of two Co-Presidents for the GEO and a PhD student in writing studies. “But also, we know that our members are in desperate need of having health insurance over the summer, they’re in desperate need of wages year-round and having work opportunities in the summer.”
Photo by J. Sidney Malone.
The GEO has been in the process of “impact bargaining” (a negotiation outside of their standard contract because of the pandemic’s effects on their conditions) for over a year and a half. The union has been asking for health insurance and better safety measures to ensure graduate students aren’t exposed to COVID-19 by the students in their classes, among other things. But members say the administration hasn’t been responsive to those requests, so they’re planning to put them directly into their main contract.
“We’re talking about how we can incorporate the demands for COVID-19 into our contract, so that we never have to go another summer without health care,” said Chelsea Birchmier, one of two solidarity co-officers for the GEO and a graduate worker in psychology. “So that anytime there’s a pandemic or any health emergency, that we have the choice to make decisions about our own safety.”
Healthcare is one of the largest concerns among GEO members. Currently, the administration places more emphasis on the student part of “graduate student workers” than workers. These employees are given benefits that work for students, such as healthcare coverage during the academic year, but not during the summers.
Graduate student workers exist in a difficult grey area, taking on essentially full-time positions to teach and do research while still taking classes of their own. That means it’s difficult for them to get a summer job that will offer benefits year-round, and means some graduate students pay to work for the University.
Photo by J. Sidney Malone.
The GEO held a rally on the Main Quad on Reading Day last month to spread the word about the needs of graduate students and the upcoming bargaining session. Members handed out signs and pamphlets, then offered tutoring to any student who needed it in the middle of the Illini Union to showcase the real work that graduate students.
“This place works because we do. Without us, it wouldn’t function,” said Austin Hoffman, co-president of the GEO and a graduate worker in anthropology. That sentiment is at the heart of the demands of the union in their new contract. Serving the needs of graduate workers ensures that the University continues to run as normal.
Another union of graduate employees made headlines across the country last fall by showing just that. Graduate students at Columbia University in New York City went on strike for ten weeks, asking for better treatment and fair wages from their university. Their union agreed to get back to work on January 7th, just weeks before classes were set to begin.
Back in Champaign-Urbana, the GEO said they’re not ruling out a strike to get the terms they want in their new contract.
“We know that to get what we want, we often need to withhold our labor and our members are really fired up right now,” said Owens. “The protections we get through the union are really a matter of life and death for people.”
The GEO plans to file its intent to bargain late next month, beginning a two-month window for the administration to respond.