An email went out to members of UAW Local 2322 yesterday from our President, Anais Surkin, and Local staff, including Anna-Claire Steffen (GEO Union Rep). If you have not received or read that email, you can find it on the GEO website here. Please read it, as it contains important information about what your Union leadership and staff are working on and what information, precautions, and job protections we are seeking in the context of this dynamic and unfolding situation with COVID-19.
In the meantime, your GEO Co-Chairs and staff want you to be aware of ways in which our contract currently speaks to this otherwise novel pandemic with currently unknowable immediate and long term consequences for all of us and our communities. Again, the email that went out yesterday invites you to contact us through a form to express concerns, questions, and share what the employer is saying to you. The form you can use to communicate with us is here.
If you are currently employed in a GEO-eligible position, then you already have a Graduate Assistantship Form (GFAF), which is an agreement between you and the University for the length of your employment, hours, and rate of pay. Your GFAF represents an obligation by the employer to honor your status as an employee, even in the event of emergency closures, etc.
You also have paid vacation, additional time off, and Family and Medical Leave which can buffer you from discipline or retaliation should you need to take time off. Each have different mechanisms through which they can be accessed, and you should contact us if you would like us to help you calculate the paid time off you have earned.
Pertaining specifically to Chancellor Subbaswamy’s email dated 11 March 2020, indicating that instruction shall be moved online and that most students are to move off campus “until further notice,” there are of course many graduate students who live on campus, in addition to working here. Insofar as your GEO contract anticipates facets of this situation, we point your attention to the following articles and rights (especially the italicized bits).
Article 30 Health and Safety
“If a work site is closed for health or safety reasons and the graduate student employees are not moved to an alternate work site, the affected graduate student employees shall continue to receive their full stipends for the remainder of their contracted appointment period. Every attempt will be made by the department head to find alternative, continuing employment for the affected graduate student employees if otherwise eligible for reappointment.”
Article 27 Layoff and Recall
If the Administration determines that it may be necessary to abrogate for financial reasons the contract of any graduate student employee prior to its expiration date, the Administration shall so notify GEO and shall provide a reasonable period of time, and, whenever possible, a minimum of thirty days, to receive advice from GEO. If, after considering the advice of GEO, the Administration determines that it remains necessary to abrogate for financial reasons the contract of any graduate student employee prior to its expiration date, the Administration shall so notify GEO and shall provide to GEO a list of affected individuals. Affected individuals shall receive, whenever possible, a minimum of one semester notice. Affected individuals shall receive all tuition and fee waivers for which they would have been eligible had their contract not been terminated prior to its expiration date and shall receive 50% of the remainder of their stipend for the semester in which the contract abrogation takes effect.
If, at any time within three years from the effective date of a layoff for financial reasons, the department from which a graduate student employee was laid off decides to make a graduate student employee appointment for which the laid off individual is, in the opinion of the department head, qualified, the laid off individual will have recall rights to that position.
As we seek more information from UMass administration about their plans beyond what they have communicated in the campus-wide email, and specific plans to protect employees, we will understand more how the Contract already protects our members and we will all certainly learn more about what we need to bargain for in the next contract.
Please keep safe, do what you need to do, and reach out to us by email. We have closed the Union office in Campus Center until further notice, but can be reached at geo@umass.edu.
