Fellow workers,
We hope that you are having a safe and relaxing holiday–and that you are taking your hard-earned time off! We write to remind you that your paychecks today should reflect the lump sums that correlate, imperfectly, to back pay from our recently-settled contract. You can calculate how much retro pay you should have received using the tables in Article 32 of our contract, "Stipends," available on our website. (Please note that these are the gross amounts and do not take into account taxes and other withholdings.)
We also want to remind members of the eligibility language included in our contract: "Graduate student employees with an active appointment as of May 12, 2022, or who are currently on the payroll, shall receive a one time lump sum payment as stated below. The university agrees that if the union identifies graduate student employees who received a GFAF late due to department or university delay but were on payroll as of the end of the respective semester they will meet to discuss whether a respective payout is warranted."
As we said previously, we are happy to help you calculate your expected lump sum payment, and to address any discrepancies between your calculations and what is actually reflected in your pay. We also intend to work assertively to identify mistakes and omissions and to send them to the university to make sure every last graduate worker receives their hard-won back pay. So if you did not receive your expected retro pay, let us know right away! We do anticipate quite a few emails, so we appreciate your patience as we work through them early next week.
in solidarity,
GEO leadership
