Our contract gives us the power to fight problems in the workplace

Do you have a grievance?

GEO works hard to improve the collective working conditions of graduate employees. GEO also works hard to protect the individual rights of members. In order to enforce the contract for individual members and protect their rights on the job GEO has a grievance procedure.

 The grievance procedure is the way GEO works protects the rights of individual members who may have been wronged by their supervisor or the university. GEO can use the grievance procedure to protect the rights of a member if a supervisor or the university seems to have violated the GEO contract, violated the principle of 'past practice' by aggressively changing work rules, or may be in violation of state and/or federal law. In order to protect their rights, GEO members who feel they may have been wronged or mistreated should not hesitate to contact GEO stewards in their department and the GEO office to discuss a workplace issue.

  The Grievance Procedure

If a grievance is found to have merit the first, and often the last, step in the grievance procedure is an informal conversation between the union representative who handles the grievance and the supervisor or appropriate University official. Many grievances are resolved in this informal way. Often the employer or supervisor is ignorant of the contract negotiated between the University and GEO and will agree to follow the contract once they have been informed about the violation.

If this informal process doesn't resolve the issue, followup meetings are arranged with the Dean and other university officials. If these additional meetings do not resolve the problem, the union may take the case to an outside arbitrator for a hearing at which the union and the university present their case. The decision of the arbitrator on the grievance is final and legally binding.

GEO stewards and staff are committed to working with graduate employees through every step of this process.

Graduate Employees Are Using the Grievance Procedure to Enforce Their Rights as Workers

• 34 graduate student employees working for the School of Education on contracts funded by Continuing Education were not paid retroactive raises they were owed. Two of these graduate employees contacted GEO after they were told they would not receive retropay. GEO discovered these 2 graduate employees and 32 others were each owed hundreds of dollars in retro pay and will now receive the retro-pay through an informal grievance resolution.
  
• Swati Birla, an international graduate student in Public Health, was working in another department on campus.  Her academic department however stalled her visa sponsorship and an "academic approval" which they claimed was necessary to process the RA paperwork.  Swati contacted GEO and worked with GEO staff to win back the $5000 in back-pay and get the F1 visa paperwork mess sorted..
  
• Jamie Gee, a graduate student in Labor Studies, was appointed to an assistantship in a campus office. Subsequently there was an attempt to unfairly revoke his appointment. Jamie contacted GEO and was able to get his appointment restored through the grievance procedure.
  
• Helene Van Ecke, a graduate student in Micriobiology was injured on the job. Because she was injured on the job, UMass workers compensation should have covered her bills, but instead she continued to receive bills. By contacting and working with GEO Helene was able to get these bills paid.
  
• Liyuan Huang, a graduate student employee in the Dept. of Plant, Soil, and Insect Sciences, was unfairly charged $454 by her insurance provider. Liyuan contacted GEO and worked with GEO staff to successfully force the provider to pay the $454 bill.