Dear GEO Members,
Nominations have closed for GEO Bargaining Committee elections for 2019-20. Thank you to everyone who have nominated themselves! Voting will begin by secret ballot all day on Nov.14th and 15th from 9am-7:30pm, and Nov.18th from 9am-5pm (ending at the Membership Meeting that afternoon from 3pm-5pm). Candidate statements, which can be found below, will also be at the polling station. Please see the official election notice below:
There will be an election for GEO-UAW 2322 Bargaining Committee Members: (2) Bargaining Research & Proposal Coordinators, (2) Bargaining Organizing & Mobilization Coordinators, 5 Unpaid & Unlimited Alternate Volunteer Positions
If you wish to be a Bargaining Committee At-Large Member (5 unpaid & unlimited alternate volunteer positions) you may still nominate yourself via email or at the membership meeting on November 18th. If you are unable to attend that meeting, you may send your nomination & a short statement to elections@geouaw.org to be read at the meeting.
Nominees for Position A: Research and Proposal Coordinator
Giselle Nevarez: As a co-Bargaining Research and Proposal Coordinator for GEO-UAW 2322, I will assess the needs and listen to input from GEO members as I fulfill research, communication, and writing responsibilities. I have demonstrated experience researching, organizing, and bargaining at my previous institution leading to a presentation of a list of demands to the University of Nebraska’s Chancellor regarding the systemic inequities aggregate to the Title IX office and the current sexual misconduct policy. Upon arrival at UMass, I sought volunteer and leadership opportunities through several GEO committees, GSS Food Security committee, and as a caucus representative for the current Labors Studies cohort. If elected, I intend to ensure all voices are included in the members’ survey before the bargaining committee’s research process begins. I believe research and bargaining work is only possible through a clear, direct line of communication between the working committee and those we serve. Prioritizing strong connections with union members will lead to a successful contract campaign.
Sam Roach: I am a second-year PhD student in Mechanical Engineering. Ahead of bargaining, I have been working to mobilize engineering students against the unjust $414 per semester “engineering fee” by organizing bi-weekly meetings of engineering stewards. We have organized a November GEO coffee hour “engineering week” to get feedback from students in our departments and increase our membership ratios in engineering departments to fight strongly against this fee at the bargaining table. I am also an elected member of the Steering Committee, representing the steward’s assembly. I am nominating myself for the Research and Proposal Coordinator position because I want to ensure strong language in our contract protecting all GEO members. I have witnessed the University’s constant delays in recognizing non-working fellows as workers, partially due to the vagaries of the current contract language allowing them to do so. I am looking forward to doing my best to ensure the bargaining desires of GEO members are met with language that legally protects them and ensures that our next contract retains the wins of our previous contracts while adding security for all workers in our bargaining unit against unjust actions by the administration. I am looking forward to an inclusive, member-led contract negotiation process. We are workers and we must stand together to fight for a fair workplace.
Thomas Corcoran: As a dedicated GEO member, I am excited about the opportunity to contribute to the union as a Bargaining Research and Proposal Coordinator. From my past and present experiences in the labor movement, I have worked across a number of settings and with a diversity of people, which has helped me develop a strong commitment to social justice and equity. If elected, I will dedicate my time and talents to ensure that we, as a union, continue to fight for the best working conditions and benefits for graduate student employees. Currently, our student body is faced with the demolition of both North Village and Lincoln Apartments; two complexes that provide essential housing needs for families and students with financial hardship. GEO’s Affordable Housing Campaign will be at the fore of securing safe, equitable, and family friendly residences for student workers, and with my position as bargaining and research coordinator, I plan to be there every step of the way. Thank you for your support!
Stephanie Higgins: My investment in labor is informed by coming from a working class family that struggled with lack of healthcare, low pay, and long hours. Without unionization, my father lacked the collective power needed to transform his workplace conditions and his health rapidly deteriorated as a consequence. I envision a world where workers thrive — with increased wages; access to quality healthcare, childcare, housing, and transportation; safety from discrimination and workplace hazards; set hours and accurate job descriptions to prevent overwork; mental health support and disability accommodations; vacation and personal time; and much more.
These imperatives, and any others proposed by GEO members, would direct my efforts as a Bargaining Research & Proposal Coordinator.
During my first GEO bargaining session my freshman year, I admired how fiercely the bargaining representatives fought to meet graduate student demands. Watching the university officials feel the pressure and witness our solidarity, I realized how strongly I wanted to help argue for these proposals at the table. I was empowered through Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) at the Center for Education Policy & Advocacy (CEPA) to make changes for dining hall workers and student-workers on campus, in solidarity with GEO and the RA/PM Union. With no family financial support, I’ve steadily worked multiple jobs at a time in order to pay my education costs, leaving frustratingly little time to study. In one of the first SLAP meetings I attended, I was able to contextualize my frustration as class rage and further, found ways to channel it into affecting change. In my four years as a CEPA member, I continued anti-poverty work for higher education access and affordability and created reliable solutions for food access. Drawing on these experiences, I am prepared to find every possible route to secure maximum wins for GEO members — through researching, drafting, discussing, and writing proposals for our negotiations with admins.
My experience as an outreach organizer at the United Food & Commercial Workers
Local 1459 enables me not only to plan and conduct corporate research in local shop campaigns but also to conduct effective and attentive outreach to workers. I developed full financial profiles of corporations and catalogued meticulous field notes on employees through deep canvassing and facilitating worker meetings. Drawing always from my Women, Gender & Sexuality studies, I connected compassionately with workers across language boundaries and differences in identity and experience. I feel fortunate to have been able to have important conversations about work experiences, comradeship, and unionization with folks working in impoverished areas, in workplaces with numerous human rights abuses. I am confident in my ability to serve as liaison between the negotiating/research group and to be in regular communication with the GEO members engaged in the research and bargaining process.
I am honored that the Labor Department voted me GEO steward in a competitive election. Within that role, I am committed to strategic research and collective bargaining with a critical intersectional lens. I have organizing experience through building and escalating impactful coalition-based campaigns and I am excited by the opportunity to deepen my understanding of labor organizing research focused on contract bargaining. While I have been in the room during contract negotiations, I aim to employ procedural knowledge and techniques related to contract bargaining. I wish to build labor solidarity by centering the least protected working populations, with a focus on gendered and racialized labor. I dream of a world in which communities are safe from the violence and the trauma caused by poverty. I want to ensure working class people dependably have their basic needs and more met while being respected and engaged in their workplaces. I believe in the labor movement’s ability to organize together toward a future that we all deserve. Driven by this vision, as a Bargaining Research & Proposal Coordinator I would be prepared to construct demands and supporting arguments that secure the best wages and conditions for GEO student-workers.
Cosku Mihci: Brothers, Sisters, and Non-Binary Siblings, My name is Cosku Mihci. I am a PhD Student and Teaching Assistant in Economics Department. I am also shop steward in my department, GEO Steering Committee member and I am from Turkey. I am a student and political organizer since I was 17. I was part of several bargaining process with university administration when I was an undergraduate student. Also, my father is a founding member of academicians’ union in Turkey. I have a comprehensive knowledge about our current contract and our unions current organizational situation. I think representation of international students in bargaining committee is important and also, as an Economics student, I can make persuasive arguments for our economic demands. I am happy to be part of the working class in the US. The US working class has a rich militant struggle history: the struggle of women textile workers in New York lead to International Women’s Day, Unions struggle in Chicago lead to International Workers’ Day and March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom lead to Civil Rights Act. US labor and union struggles was in decline since air controllers’ lockout in 1981. However, US working class flexes their muscles recently. This new period is started with West Virginia Teacher’s Strike in 2018 and it is going on with GM workers strike which is the biggest industrial struggle in the US since 1980’s. We are in such a historical moment that we, with other sections of the US working class, can stop this continuous attack to the US working class. Our collective bargaining with university administration can be part of this process. We can win a strong contract not only by strong arguments on bargaining table, but by energetic united struggle. We should give united struggle with undergraduate and graduate students, professors and custodial workers in UMASS Amherst. We should use all the legitimate struggle methods to win a strong contract! Our power is coming from our unity! We are the majority in this university and we can show our strength to the university administration! If you elect me to bargaining committee, I will be honored to represent GEO members and defend our interests against the university administration. I am confident that we will win a strong contract with a strong bargaining committee and an energetic united struggle!
Nominees for Position B Organizing and Mobilization Coordinator
Ian Busher: I’m Ian Busher. I’m a labor studies student. I’m passionate about defending the amazing wins in our contract and I’m VERY passionate about fighting for wage increases, vacation pay outs and protections against overwork. I know from my department and I know from what’s happening with the Lincoln and North Village, that UMASS loves saying there’s no money left over for public ed. But austerity is a choice! Teachers in Chicago are telling their city officials that it’s time to make a different one. With this contract negotiation, I’m looking forward to making sure the administrators and the politicians in the statehouse get the message too. Throughout bargaining, I look forward to keeping every member of the union updated. I’m thinking video updates, a bargaining blog, charts! We’re going to create a powerful and clear campaign to pressure the administration. I’m going to meet with every department I can, as we engage in solidarity actions, like tshirt days. But that’s just the base as we escalate. More about me: I’m the former co-chair of the DSA-SF labor committee. While on the labor committee I spearheaded our work on the VCA contract drive. We worked with VCA vet techs who are organizing for their first contract.
Melanie Klein: I am a PhD student in the Environmental Conservation department. I have been a GEO member since 2012 and a steward for the past year and a half. For two years prior to that, I held leadership roles in the Environmental Conservation department’s grad student organization. I would like to help ensure that a wide variety of our members are represented and involved in the bargaining process, including those in STEM fields such as my own.
Volunteer Bargaining Committee Members
Ihsaan Bassier
