Stages On Life's Way

Today, we're going to be presenting the university with some actual facts--for which they asked!--about the economics of being a grad student here.  This will largely come in the form of first-person testimony.  We will record as much of this as we can here, so long as it preserves the anonymity of the speaker.

Why the anonymity?  Why are we not calling out names?

Because we believe that the issues--and the university's antagonistic and callous responses to them--speak for themselves.  Who is saying it is far less important than what is being said.

See you back here at 3 p.m.

3:22 p.m.  Our bargaining team is here and in place.  Guess which bargaining team is nowhere to be found?

3:30 p.m.  We're supposed to be starting.  3/5 of the university team is here.  Maybe they need to organize.

3:34 p.m. We're opening with leave.  Parental issues leading the day.  Starting with Article 27, governing sick leave.  And the $500k/yr lawyer didn't bring his copy of the CBA to the table. So a delay in the middle of our statement.  The university wants to know how a GTF at .49 FTE can cover for a sick GTF, because we're not allowed to be paid above .49.  We're proposing either the supervisor take the work on, or the section be canceled for the day if there is no GTF in the dept. below .49.  However, less than half of working GTFs are at .49, so the university's concern seems unfounded.  One might think they're just picking nits.

3:40 p.m.  We're trying to create formal procedures to protect both the GTF and their students, in the case of major illness.  We're inviting a counter-proposal from the university that accomplishes this goal.  75% of surveyed GTFs have had an illness requiring them to miss work.  The university wants to know how many days these GTFs would have missed.  Once we separate the flyshit from the pepper, we might have a bargaining session.

3:45 p.m. On to parental leave.  We're proposing the GTF be given paid paternity leave of 6 weeks, at a .2 fraction, in order to maintain their health benefit.  Again, they want to know how many GTFs would be affected.  We're going to have a GTF who is a parent testify to the difficulties of their experience as a GTF with a child.  "We hope that you will realize that the policy decisions you make today have real outcomes for real people."  #ThrowingHeat

3:50 p.m. This GTF is killing it, pointing out the UO's ad hoc parental leave policy is at best problematic and at worst, explicitly discriminatory towards women.  A GTF wanting to start a family is faced with 3 options:

1.)  Don't have a child.

2.) Take a part-time load, making starting a family economically unfeasible, or work full-time (while pregnant) until the birth, then take 7 weeks unpaid leave, leaving the class one is currently teaching in the lurch.

3.) Take a leave of absence and go on COBRA.  COBRA benefits for this GTF would have cost the GTF $1000/month, or about 1/3 of this GTF's annual salary--all while they are not being paid.

The GTF killing it again, showing how, with the ad hoc policy, the burden for arranging funding falls on the GTF and makes leave decisions dependent on factors beyond the GTF's control, i.e. changes in department heads, policies, etc.  "At best, the lack of a policy make being a parent seem like an aberration for GTFs, at worst, it makes it seem like being a parent is a detriment to being a GTF."  Just killing it.

The university lawyer won't even look the GTF in the eye.  It's like she isn't even there.

4:00 p.m. The university's position is that we're only 3 month employees, asking for 12 weeks of leave, 6 paid.  In reality, we are 2-5 year employees, asking for 12 weeks of leave, 6 paid.  We're trying to change the rhetoric, the university is trying to draw selective endpoints.  Either these past 4 years have been the longest three months of my life, or the university is trafficking in sophistry.

4:02 p.m. The university is now going to present on their proposals for this session. Leading with arbitration, they don't want the arbitrator to be an employee of UO, GTFF, or AFT.  We're asking if there has ever been an instance of this.  The $500K/yr lawyer doesn't know that the GTFF is an AFT local.

4:05 p.m. Conduct of hearings.  The university wants a deadline for arbitrations to occur.  They want to move from 15 days to 30 days to accomodate the busy schedules of all involved parties.

4:07 p.m. Arbitration related to academic issues.  The university wants the arbitrator to not be able to make a decision that exceeds the procedure in place in the CBA.

4:08 p.m.  Article 16.  They want discipline to include limiting access to university facilities and property, as well as restitution.  This sounds like a perfect excuse to ban people who speak out.  My sense of this whole change is meant to broadly expand the university's disciplinary power over us, taking power both away from the department heads, as well as placing provisos inside the CBA that could undermine the protections in the CBA.  The term "progressive discipline" keeps popping up.  I feel like this is a power grab by the university over an entity they feel they cannot currently control.

4:15 p.m. Ah, there it is. Pressed for an example, Fancy Lawyer man cites a "particularly defamatory or slanderous publication."  Like, say for instance, this blog...

4:16 p.m. Our organizer astutely points out that it seems the university wants to be able to summarily fire a GTF, who would then be forced to file a grievance after they've already been fired, which guts the protections afforded by the grievance procedure.  There's also a problematic conflation in the language between a GTF being suspended and a GTF being fired for "some conduct."  It seems the same conduct would warrant either discipline without distinguishing which acts warrant which punishment.

4:18 Fancy Lawyer is trying desperately to explain how this process is not a circumvention of the grievance procedure...by describing exactly how the process circumvents the grievance procedure.

4:25 p.m. Mostly procedural changes, record keeping, etc.

4:26 p.m. Some housecleaning changes to the insurance clause.  Not a lot of substance in the last few proposals.

4:30 p.m. No strikes or lockouts.  The university wants to have the ability to "request" that we perform the work of a striking employees.  I'm sure this request will come without any undue pressure or coercion...

4:33 p.m. Basically, the university doesn't want to increase a fraction to cover for sick leave or paternity leave, but they will increase a fraction to cover for a striking employee.  Fancy Lawyer is trying to explain how we can't fund people out sick and why we can fund people out on strike.  He needs a lesson in modal logic.

This is priceless. Basically, the university sees the money not being spent on the wages of a striking employee as a slush fund for scabs.

4:40 p.m. They want to have the ability to fingerprint GTFs.  Ok...

4:40 p.m. The university wants to institute drug testing, citing prohibitions against using drugs and alcohol on campus. Supposedly this drug testing would not be random, but could only occur when the university has a reason to believe a violation of the drug and alcohol policy has occurred.  Fancy Lawyer cites a GTF showing up to work drunk as an example of an instance where a drug test could be demanded.  However, he now admits the university does not even have an apparatus in place for this testing.  Sounds like it will go through the Health Center.  Which means student fees will have to fund it.  University admins are masters of the unfunded mandate.

4:46 p.m. Now we are going to discuss access to wireless on campus.We want full wireless access for grads across campus, especially since we live in 2014. We are clarifying that wireless doesn't have to be accessed in every single centimeter of campus. We just want grads to be able to use the Internet.

4:50 p.m. GTFs from the music school are talking now about the effect of their lack of wireless access, which makes it harder to teach their classes. Music classes often require the use of Internet, and without wireless access GTFs and their undergraduate students are having a harder time conducting class. In less than a week, over 43 GTFs signed a paper demanding better wireless access so we can do our teaching work, and this is affecting many GTFs across campus.

4:53 p.m. Music classes in particular require the use of a lot of media, so wireless access is crucial for both music teachers and their undergraduate students. A lot of students also do not have devices with ethernet ports, so wireless in particular is essential for conducting projects and sharing information. Music GTFs are often frustrated because they will go to a conference that tells them all the ways in which Internet media can enhance their courses, only to come back to UO and be unable to evolve their own courses due to lack of wireless access.

4:56 p.m. Another music GTF is now explaining how lack of wireless access is creating more work for GTFs and makes their interaction with students, for example discussing grades in office hours, very difficult. Music GTFs may also have a lot of music samples on Blackboard (especially since it is helpful to be able to hear things when studying music) to help students with, but cannot access these due to lack of wireless Internet. Moving is impossible because the available alternative spaces are inappropriate or too noisy for meeting with students.

5:01 p.m. We are pointing out how UO prides itself as a place that utilizes cutting edge technology for teaching and research, yet even today's basic technology is unavailable for many GTFs,

5:02 p.m. Fancy Lawyer is telling us that we can't have wireless access because it is hard to install a "Wi-Fi thingy." The University acknowledges that wireless access is important, but doesn't want to bring us up to 2014 standards because that would be hard. They do acknowledge that they should update "certain critical places." Too bad acknowledgment isn't action.

5:10 p.m. University admits that nobody knows how much providing GTF workspaces with wireless access would cost, which doesn't exactly inspire confidence in their claim that they cannot afford it. We are clarifying that we are not demanding complete and total wireless saturation on campus; we just want good wireless access for all GTFs where they are required to work.

5:12 p.m. We are now planning to have a brief caucus. The head of our GTFF Bargaining Team wants to make sure that GTFs have a say in what is happening with the discussions at the table. Nice quote from our lead: "Your hands are tied by bureaucracy, our hands are tied by democracy."

5:42 p.m. Caucus over. Now we are going to discuss a few questions we had about their proposals.

5:42 p.m. We are asking what environments drug and alcohol testing will cover, especially since GTFs work in a variety of places (including home) and often go to conferences where alcohol consumption can be necessary for networking.

The University is saying that drug and alcohol tests can be brought in "When work performance is affected." We are worried that research GTFs, who present their research at conferences as part of their paid GTF work, could be penalized and tested for consuming alcohol at conference social events.

Apparently, GTFs sometimes wear their "GTF hat" and at other times do not.

The University is specifying that the difference is between presenting as a scholar and as a GTF, and that social events at conferences can be classified as non-work related. They are also bringing up again that it involves drugs and alcohol "affecting your work performance." This seems problematically vague, especially since we do a lot of work in our own homes.

5:48 p.m. We are asking for specifications about what constitutes a "controlled substance." The University is unsure if drugs such as Sudafed will be included in the definition. It's probably not a good policy if it is unclear whether GTFs are allowed to take cold medicine or not.

We are also asking what will happen if marijuana usage is legalized in Eugene. The University's response: That the right to test will come from a situation that will lead a Reasonable Person™ to believe that alcohol or drug consumption is affecting work.

Reasonable Person™ apparently doesn't give a damn if a GTF's work is affected by being sick or by receiving no leave support when they have a child.

The University is saying that in the case of legalized marijuana, THC being in your system does not violate policies. It is only when THC is in your system AND your work hasn't been up to par, based on a situation-by-situation basis. Then they will use "the appropriate methodology." Vagueness and ambiguity of application abounds.

5:56 p.m. The University wants a "describable factual basis" for the fact that "he" was high, including several symptoms that implicate "him." This will be discerned by "a Normal Rational Person"™.

5:59 p.m. We are asking where the money for GTF drug and alcohol testing is going to come from. Of course there will be money for this, even though there's apparently no money for parental leave, sick leave, and wireless access.

6:01 p.m. We are also concerned about how this policy will affect international GTF workers.

6:04 p.m. We are objecting to GTFs being encouraged by their employers to cross picket lines and take the work of striking workers, and we are making sure to stand for a respectful relationship among workers on campus. GTFF members find this proposed policy very offensive to campus communities.

Fancy Lawyer is stuck on repeat about GTFs not being required to do fill-in work for striking workers. This is beside the point: the reason why we reject this proposal is because the University is attempting to seduce some workers on campus into throwing other workers under the bus.

The University is "hopeful" that there would never be any need for blood testing or filling in for striking workers. Nobody is hopeful that this statement actually means anything.

6:11 p.m. Policy discussions are done, and now they are figuring out logistics for the next meeting. Thanks to the GTFF bargaining team for doing a great job at the table and to the GTFs who showed up to the meeting!

The next session will focus heavily on economic proposals, such as our push for a liveable wage (according to the University's own definition). Hope to see you on Friday (1/24) next week!

You can also check out the GTFF's activity on Twitter at @GTFF_3544 and the larger conversation at #GTFF3544!