Graduate Employee Organization

Welcome to the Spring 2023 Semester!

Get ready to apply for the Scholarly Support Fund which opens next Tuesday, January 31st, at 8 am EST. Remember SSF is a first come-first serve grant; funding is awarded to applicants in the order GEO receives applications. Check out the official SSF guidelines by clicking on “Scholarly Support Fund” (top right).

We’re happy to invite you to three events that we are holding with the GSA!

The Hypocrisy & Humor of the Student Loan Debt Crisis (Education in Equity Series: On Wednesday evening, from 6:00pm-7:30pm, we’re holding the first in our Education in Equity series: join the important conversation with Dr. Venus Evans-Winters and our own Dr. Keith Jones, moderated by GEO’s Chidimma Ozor Commer! Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_m1TjmfGdTPC0Ghp82JAVMg

Dunkin’, Donuts, and Debt Relief: On Thursday, December 1, from 11:30am to 1:30pm, join a Student Loan Relief Q&A. Join us with the GSA on Campus Center 03-3115 to ask some questions, see if we’ve any answers, and swing by for snacks, warm drinks, and information. 

GEO-GSA Semester End Party: The final event: join us on Friday evening, from 6:00pm onward, at The Harp and Bard (located at 1099 Dorchester Ave, which is practically right next to the Savin Hill T Stop) for the semester-end party! Food, drinks, comrades, and conversation. We always throw a good event at the Harp: don’t miss out.

You are all part of – and really, are the heart of – the Graduate Employee Organization, the labor union for graduate assistants at the school. The GEO is a union in all definitions of the word: we negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with the university, which then sets minimum pay and benefits for all GAs. Signing a dues authorization card is what makes the collective bargaining agreement possible: without dues, the university would be able to lower our pay, freeze (or reduce) our benefits, and worse.

If you would like an Organizing Committee member to come and discuss the content of this email to your department please email Jonathan Vega Martinez at jonathan.vegamart001@umb.edu to schedule a talk. We’d love to explain these developments and their importance to you and peers in a face to face setting!

While all GAs are in the union, the union asks all GAs to be dues-paying members by signing a dues authorization card. (Make sure to sign at the bottom left!) By becoming a dues-paying member of the union, you benefit and are eligible for:

– The minimum stipend for all GAs (and the raises we receive to that stipend every year)
– Representation in grievances
– The Student Health Insurance Benefit ($2750 in AY22-23)
– The tuition waiver, which is pro-rated to your assistantship hours
– Access to the Scholarly Support Fund (a $25,000 fund for travel and academic expenses, administered by the union)
– Access to the Emergency Support Fund (a $25,000 fund for unexpected financial hardship, administered by the union)
– You can run in Union Elections
– You can vote in Union Elections
– You can vote to ratify the contract in bargaining years

We strongly recommend that you sign a dues authorization card so we can keep these benefits! Every year, the university tries some new scheme to disenfranchise union members and the union – and every year, we have to find out a new way to push back against it.

By not being a dues-paying member of the union, you cannot run for or vote in union elections, nor can you vote to ratify the contract. This means that you cannot vote for or run for the organizing committee – the people who negotiate the contract – nor ratify and express approval or disapproval for the contract. Additionally, you may be charged a service fee should you require representation as part of a grievance. 

This is the Dues Authorization Form is also the FERPA waiver. Waiving your FERPA rights only applies to the union, and the entire purpose of it is to make it possible for the union to get in touch with you and your colleagues and help organize. We do not request your academic information like grades or GPA. Furthermore, signing the waiver does not allow some random person to walk in off the street and request your information. WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU SIGN THE FERPA WAIVER.

The end of Fall semester is near – and Spring is just around the corner. Along with Spring will come BARGAINING – and that means we’ll be negotiating for our raises for the 2023 and onward contract year, as well as our benefits for those years, which will include the health insurance benefit.

Remember: THIS IS YOUR UNION. Without your involvement, we do not win at the negotiating table, and the university can claw back our benefits – don’t let them. Join the union, and show up during bargaining!

Solidarity,
The GEO Organizing Committee
Warren Hinckle

Voting for the Fall 2022 elections to fill the sixth – and new – position in the GEO organizing committee will be held online on Tuesday, October 11 (opens at 8 am EST) and Wednesday, October 12 (closes at 11:59 pm EST).

Only pre-registered, dues-paying GEO members are eligible to vote in this election. Everyone should register for voting by Friday, October 7 at 11:59 pm EST. To register, fill out a new dues-authorization PDF and email it to geoumb.elections@gmail.com from your UMB email account. *If you are a new graduate student or have decided to join your graduate union and vote, you can vote as long as you register on or before October 7 at 11:59 pm EST.

Look at the fantastic graduate students running for this position (here)!

For more details, you can access the Fall 2022 Elections Guide here or by clicking the top right page on this website.

Applications for the Scholarly Support Fund (SSF) will be opening soon after the start of the Fall semester [September 12 at 8 am EST]. If you attended a Summer conference or plan to attend one in the Fall, you can start getting ready to apply for funding. You can also apply for non-conference-related expenses. Please see SSF guidelines here! Please reach out to geo@umb.edu if you have any questions.

The GEO

Let’s talk about power and organizing. We can often spend a lot of time getting lost in a rush of actions and updates that happen while we’re here at UMass – while we’re dealing with the university time and time again and the updates can often feel depressing at times, because it’s an endless treadmill and a constant fight – well. We have to see what it is we are fighting for. We have to see what victory looks like.

And fortunately for us, we’ve got a few examples of that. 

Howard University faculty threatened a strike two weeks ago over low pay and bad conditions – and after threatening the strike, the university gave in. Howard’s faculty were given a raise to bring their non-tenure-track faculty up to pay parity with tenure-track faculty, as well as one that would guarantee longer term appointments so that faculty would not be working semester to semester.

Sound familiar? It’s the same way we’re appointed – or “non-reappointed” – every semester. It’s a way we’re fighting the university to ensure that graduate students get job security. And we can see that it’s something that we *can fight* and a fight that we can win – as long as we all fight. But what we have to offer about Howard’s situation is second-hand at best, and it’s best that you hear directly from people who were on the ground and fighting the good fight, one that’s been in the making for over a year now. 

It’s not just Howard’s non tenure-track faculty pushing on its employer. Across the country, Starbucks have been unionizing in a wave of ratification votes to push for better wages and rights – and Starbucks is terrified. We know Starbucks is scared because of how it is they’re responding. Rather than let the employers unionize and back off, or work in some way to increase benefits, the company is trying to fire employees for their union organizing – while claiming that it’s for violations. In the meantime, those employees are seeking to fight back against their retaliation… and while Starbucks resorts to failed terminations, the best they have to show for it is their anti-union website. Their anti-union website is hilariously bad. We won’t link it here, but it’s good for a laugh and a reminder that the people fighting us often rely – heavily – on money and institutional moment.

While Howard faculty are winning by threatening strike actions, and Starbucks are unionizing across the country, there’s another larger labor win – and it’s JFK8, one of the Amazon warehouses in Staten Island, which voted to unionize the other day. Amazon is pushing back in every way that they can, but the ALU is already beginning to move toward unionizing other warehouses in the area. This win is one that we should view as empowering and one that we can take strength from. An employee fired by the company for unionizing efforts leads an election and unionizes the first Amazon warehouse – and if Amazon employees can do that, then we can fight, too. [See ALU’s website here: https://www.amazonlaborunion.org/]

When we fight together, we win together.

Let’s fight together.

This Thursday, we’re holding our next action on campus. Join us at the union office between 945am and 1015am – and then join us as we march up to Quinn-03 to present our open letter to the Chancellor. If you haven’t yet, you can read the letter here – it’s arguing that we need more and better from the university. 

Sign the letter – and spread the word. Everyone and anyone can sign onto the letter, and the more, the better, so share this URL widely! https://forms.gle/mV9S3eiHmt987zKUA When we fight together, we win together, and we have to fight together to get that win.

Join us Thursday.

Let’s push back.

You may know about the GSA – the Graduate Student Government – and what they’re up to, and you may have applied to SSF earlier this semester. We’ve got good news.

First thing’s first: the GSA is announcing the opening of both the Dr. Robert. W Spayne and Craig R. Bollinger spring 2022 research grants! 

The Spayne Research Grant (which is for work leading to a master’s thesis or a capstone project) is a competitive grant awarded to assist students in defraying research expenses. The numbers vary, and it can reward up to $1500 each Fall and Spring semester! The grant is to support registered masters students and not en route doctoral students. 

The Bollinger Doctoral Thesis Grant is for work leading to a doctoral dissertation or doctoral-level capstone project – similar to the Spayne grant, it is meant to defray the costs of research, and while the number of grants vary, it can reward up to $1500 each Fall and Spring semester. Candidates who have already defended their proposals and received IRB approval are welcome to apply!
To apply for either grant, https://umb.campuslabs.com/engage/ using your email (not @umb.edu; just your email) and your email password. Once logged in, click on “Organizations” and search for Graduate Student Assembly. From the GSA home page, click the join button, then on forms, and then select the Spayne or Bollinger application form as applicable. More detailed instructions can be found there.

GEO,

This Thursday we need you to show up! It is a day packed with collective action, bargaining, and some after-bargaining fun! You can join for any or all of it. We have to present a strong and unified front to finally get management to offer us a contract that substantially improves the lives of grad employees.

… and we are also LONG overdue to have some time together.
 

• Between 09:45am and 10:15am, join us in the Union Office (Quinn-02-081) to prepare for our rally on Quinn’s third floor!
• From 10:15am to 10:45am, we’ll be at Quinn-03 to hold our action and rally – where we’ll push our open letter to the powers that be and demand the university treat us right!
• You can read the open letter here,
• And sign it here! ANYONE CAN SIGN: share it widely.
• At 10:45am we’ll head over to CC2115 – where we’ll be in bargaining with management until 1pm! The conference room has a big, wall-length window that management always conveniently sits right across from. To have all of our membership staring them down makes our demands real in a way nothing else can. .
• You can show up at any time, but we need you there!
• Bargaining ends at 1pm – and we plan to meet at the Harp and Bard from 2pm to 5pm to take a breather, pat ourselves on the back, and socialize. Come join all of us at the Harp (1099 Dorchester Avenue, about 15 minutes from campus) for an afternoon of lunch, company, and solidarity!

If you have any dietary restrictions or needs, email us to let us know!

See you Thursday!

Take Action to Win Debt-Free College in Mass.

THIS THURSAY 3/24

You might have heard the news that this week New Mexico became the 31^st state to offer some kind of statewide debt-free college. We need your help to win that in Massachusetts!

PHENOM (Public Higher Ed Network of Massachusetts) and other groups need our help to advance a debt-free college bill in our state legislature. If it doesn’t move out of committee to a floor vote, this bill will die and will have to be restarted in the next legislative session. S829/H1339, An Act to Guarantee Debt-Free Public Higher Education,” would guarantee every Massachusetts resident has a right to a public higher education free of tuition, fees, and student debt and covers all MA public higher ed institutions, including UMB.

This legislation will create a grant program to cover tuition and fees for all MA residents to attend any MA public college, university, or certificate, vocational or training program. It will also cover additional costs of attendance (housing, transportation, books, etc.) for low income students. These funds will NOT affect eligibility for other financial aid.

Will you make 2 phone calls on Thurs. 3/24 to help win Debt-Free College in MA?

Any time between 9am and 5pm on Thursday 3/24 [tomorrow!], please call the Chairs of the Joint Committee on Higher Education and ask them to positively report out S829/H1339 “An Act to Guarantee Debt-Free Public Higher Education,” before the April 4^th deadline. This will bring the bill to the House and Senate floors for a vote. Otherwise, the bill will die, and PHENOM will have to start over during the next State House session. Note that both these Chairs are big supporters of public higher education.

The Senate Committee Chair is Senator Anne M. Gobi of Central Mass. Her phone number is: 617-722-1540

The House Committee Chair is Representative David Rogers of Cambridge. His phone number is: (617) 722-2263

Some Talking Points:

• When you call Senator Gobi’s and Rep. Roger’s offices, please give them your name and your UMass Boston affiliation (staff, student, alum, faculty, etc.).

• The ask: you are calling to ask the Chair to please positively report out S829/H1339 “An Act to Guarantee Debt-Free Public Higher Education,” before the April 4^th deadline.

• Please also tell the Chairs why this legislation matters to you.

Some ideas on why passing S829/H1339 matters to so many people in Massachusetts:

• I believe that access to debt-free, high-quality public higher education should be the right of every Massachusetts resident.
• Cuts in state funding for public colleges are making it impossible for students and families to afford college. These cuts are now driving Massachusetts public college tuition and fees up faster than any other state in the country. 
• Many students and their families are burdened by debilitating debt that severely limits their future opportunities.
• The average student debt in Massachusetts is $37,172 growing.

• Student debt affects most heavily Black, Latinx, other people of color, low-income and first generation students, who are the majority of our UMass Boston undergraduate students.
• Massachusetts has the 10th highest student debt burden in the country and the sixth lowest public college budget.
• 31 other state legislatures have passed some kind of debt-free college legislation. Our state legislature should join them!
• YOUR THOUGHTS AND EXPERIENCES. . .

Please let us know what you hear from on your calls or hear back from the Committee Chairs. Share that information with our UMB PHENOM Organizer, Izabel.Depina001@umb.edu.

The Massachusetts Teacher Association commissioned a third party to do an airflow evaluation of Wheatley – we now have the reports, and they are not good. Sixty percent of the rooms in Wheatley do not achieve the recommended number of air exchanges per hour. 

Read the report here. On Friday, join us from 12pm to 1pm as the researchers present their findings directly. You can do so by clicking into this Zoom link at that time.

https://umassboston.zoom.us/j/91336634626