Fellow workers, please read these statements from the candidates running for GEO officer positions.
EJ Nielsen: candidate for co-chair
My name is EJ Nielsen, I will be entering my fifth year of a
Communication PhD at UMass Amherst. I’m asking for a chance to serve
our graduate community as GEO co-chair in 2019-2020.
As I watch the ongoing efforts to prevent unions forming at other
universities, I recognise how fortunate we are to have such a
longstanding and strong union at UMass protecting and supporting us.
However, we cannot afford to grow complacent. The current US climate is
even more hostile towards unions and even towards the basic human rights
of minorities, and as our recent contract bargaining has shown, the
university will not pass up an opportunity to reduce our hard-won
benefits.
A successful GEO co-chair must be passionate about protecting our rights
and dedicated to the work, while also able to manage and stay organised.
I previously served as Grad Student rep to the Comm Graduate Studies
Committee for two years, doing my best to bring a graduate student
perspective to a committee of faculty and to speak truth to power. I
have also worked as a journal managing editor, a role which required
high organization, time management, and almost infinite emailing.
I plan to work closely with Mary Dickman, running for a second term as
GEO Mobilization Coordinator. Their continuing successes as Coordinator
speak for themselves, but GEO could not ask for a more dedicated person
in this role.
We all come to UMass from different backgrounds, but we are united in
our commitment to our education, our students, our research, and our
future. We deserve to be safe, secure, and supported in our time at
UMass.
“We must hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang
separately.”
Benjamin Franklin
“There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not
live single-issue lives.” Audre Lorde
With your support, I look forward to serving our graduate community as
GEO co-chair.
Jyoti Iyer and Anna Claire: candidates for co-chair joint statement
Vote Jyoti lyer and Anna-Claire Simpson for GEO Co-Chairs!
We are so excited by the possibility of leading and serving GEO’s members and collaborating together as we look ahead to another contract bargaining year. Jyoti has been a GEO member for six years and a steward from Linguistics for two. Anna-Claire has served as GEO’s Grievance Coordinator for the past two years, while also serving on the last contract bargaining committee and the bargaining team that successfully negotiated against the Writing Program’s legally-dubious teaching restructure,
We are committed to the following platform, which sustains, builds on and deepens what our Union has already accomplished through our powerful membership:
Grow Our Numbers. Continue the steward-led member campaign GEO began last year, which successfully kept our numbers strong. This is vital to our ability to keep winning strong contracts, grievances, and the overall administration of our amazing contract.
Bargaining Campaign. Help assemble a strong and imaginative bargaining committee and action committee to tackle the following issues:
Year-round funding. UMass Grad Workers shouldn’t be left unemployed or scrambling to find temporary work during summers. Bad for grads, bad for the University.
• Fees. With our last contract, we won a freeze on fees, crucial to maintain the impact of our raises. This time, we need to ensure they don’t take that money right back out of our pockets.
UMass needs to honor the contract. Our last contract is so good, and yet there are key wins which admin has been slow to honor.
Non Working Fellows. The GEO side of the Non Working Fellows committee painstakingly researched the major grants which fund so-called “Non Working Fellows,” and we found no basis for the University’s rationale to stifle workers’ access to GEO benefits and democratic voice. In other words, the University needs to get these workers into the Union NOW! Gender neutral restrooms. Compel the University to create MORE GUARANTEED ACCESS to gender neutral restrooms. Access at this point means ensuring more gender neutral restrooms and signage altogether.
More support for international grad workers. No grad worker should be at risk of losing their job because of a visa issue. The last contract included a new Non Discrimination Committee for creating a single, transparent point of contact and avenues through which grad workers can access FREE immigration support, immigration lawyers, and job opportunities on campus. Through this committee, stronger protections against all forms of discrimination can be dynamically built between the Union and the University. With increasingly hostile visa renewal policies and curtailments on travel even to our home countries, we need more than ever a good understanding of international student-specific problems, and a strong voice to present to IPO when needed. But of course, GEO has again been left to do most of the heavy lifting to support grad workers in these ways, including being first responders for grad workers stuck abroad. UMASS NEEDS TO DO THE WORK AND ALLOCATE THE RESOURCES.
Continue working and organizing against racism, Islamophobia, anti-semitism, xenophobia and homophobia: the University fails to allocate the resources they have to protect and support individuals and communities attacked. The University still retains strong ties to Amherst Police and UMPD still has their “Anonymous Tip Line,” which has proven to encourage racial profiling on campus.
Grad Work Should Not Be Overwork. We all know this is a major problem in STEM in particular, where many grad workers are putting in ridiculous hours while only paid for a fraction. The University benefits from this false distinction between the work you are contracted to do for the University versus your research. This is not only exploitative, but dangerous to our health and safety and renders workers extremely vulnerable to other abuses. We need a transparent system, but we also need to fight for our research to be recognized as a valuable asset to the University’s business of knowledge production. They know it’s valuable, they just don’t want to pay for it.
Building out the GEO Communication Committee. GEO recently organized a new communications committee to work on social media campaigns, soliciting member contributions for the newsletter, and overhauling the website. We want to continue and strengthen this work by empowering more members to collaborate on our messaging and outreach to the membership at large.
North Village Campaign. The impact of North Village mis-management, rising rents, and increasing offline units deeply impacts workers and families, particularly international grad workers. We need to reignite our efforts to open up units in North Village, reduce rents over the summers, freeze rents during the academic year, and get the University to do better on repair and upkeep.
Ganesh Pai Mangalore: Candidate for co-chair
I am Ganesh Pai Mangalore, and I am a fourth-year graduate student in Mechanical Engineering. It would an honor to represent my fellow graduate workers as the co-chair of the Graduate Employee Organization.
I have been a research assistant in the College of Engineering for three out my fours years here in UMass Amherst. Working as an RA and studying in the program has given me the opportunity to meet people from all around the world and see America through their eyes, in their shoes. Often, I have heard many troubling tales of exploitation and discrimination faced by graduate students, both domestic and international. I believe that this is unfortunate since Graduate students are the backbone of UMass. We
are not only the students, teachers, and researchers driving the academics on-campus, but also the dining workers, librarians, baristas, bus drivers, cashiers etc. I will make sure that we give considerable support to every graduate worker and creating a safe working environment, by promoting more events where graduate student workers can come in and express their concerns, report incidents and make suggestions for improvement of the union itself.
In this current political situation, the tales of discrimination and exploitation cases are only increasing. International students comprise of a large chunk of our graduate student population. Being an international student myself, I have definitely seen rise in racism, sometimes subtle, sometimes very harsh. I know that some international students are often left with the feeling that they do not have a support system on-campus or have no one to talk to about the upsetting and uncomfortable scenarios they face. I do believe we need to provide both legal and psychological resources so that international students can pursue those options in order to make their environment more friendly and welcoming, as
well as help themselves.
I do believe as a graduate student community we should support each other regardless of our nationality, race, religion, sexuality or gender. I believe in order to reach out to every graduate student workers on-campus, we will need to enlist volunteers and student officers for every category of worker role on-campus. This network of officers and volunteers will facilitate meaningful communication, help sort out the issues faced by the graduate student worker in their role, thereby improving the effectiveness of GEO’s role as a support system to graduate students.
TLDR; I will be in strong favor of:
- Creating a safe working environment for all graduate student workers and more events for
graduate students to voice their concerns and also provide suggestions for improving the GEO - Legal Representative(s) who will represent students when they are a target of a
racist/homophobic/sexist hate crime - Psychological Services who will specialize in helping students overcoming these tragic incidents
- Create a network of volunteers and officers for all graduate worker role on the campus.
As you your representative, I will make sure that I listen to your voice and co-chair a union that stands
for every graduate student. I hope you vote for me and help us make life easier for graduate students
workers.
Mary Dickman: Candidate for Mobilization Coordinator
Dear fellow GEO members,
My name is Mary Dickman and I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Communication. I am pleased to announce my candidacy for the 2019-2020 GEO Mobilization Coordinator. I have been in GEO leadership for the last two years, currently serving as the GEO Mobilization Coordinator and as a member of the Bargaining Committee for the most recent contract negotiation.
In the wake of the Janus v. AFSME Supreme Court decision last June I have worked to increase our membership and strengthen our union. The Janus decision made null the fair-share provisions – meaning that public sector employees are no longer required to pay fees to unions to cover the costs of collective bargaining. As a result of the ruling GEO immediately lost 600
“agency fee payers” from our membership. In response I have implemented a Membership Drive, which has included hosting Coffee Hours in department across campus, department walkthroughs, and individually contacting each “non-payer” to inform them of the change in
their status and convince them to become “dues paying” members. While the policy experts predicted that union membership would decline across the country under my direction GEO has increased our membership by 200 people!!!
The Mobilization Coordinator is responsible for educating members about the contract and their rights, increasing member engagement, and ensuring the democratic functioning of our union. I am seeking re-election for GEO’s Mobilization Coordinator to bring the experience and knowledge I have gained to provide institutional memory, procedural knowledge, and support for the new incoming GEO officers. I hope you will consider voting for me so I can continue to work on behalf of my fellow GEO members.
In Solidarity,
Mary C. Dickman
