In Which We Do the Work

Here we go again.

When we last saw our heroes, they were being lowballed with a bad-faith package by a lawyer getting paid $290.00/hr.  One wonders how the administration doesn't see the potential for a financial conflict of interest here. #LetTheLawyerGrade

Just sayin.

We're going to try and TA Article 10, governing workplace health & safety issues today, and we're going to try and get the administration to come back to earth from their insultingly regressive offer of last session.

12:34 p.m. Kicking off with noneconomic proposals from the admin.  The admin feels the need to "make us understand" the we have to clean up our messes in the kitchen areas.  Seriously.  $290/hr to be lectured about cleaning our room.  This guy really is hilarious!  We're proposing language the refers to the article(s) governing workload in the case that this housecleaning interferes with workload limits. They accept.

12:42 p.m. Article 9, Workloads.  They are countering the Frac Sheet proposals, and suggesting GTFs meet regularly with supervisors to monitor workloads.  They suggest Frac Sheets as a voluntary trial program.  They want to introduce clarifying language that specifies this refers to teaching requirements, not research requirements.  The lawyer, seeing as he gets paid by the hour and therefore has no interest in timely solutions, is prattling on about streamlining administrative processes. As if the burgeoning administrative ranks here indicate that streamlining admin processes is in any way a priority...

We're getting closer to an agreement, but we don't like the "voluntary" language.  We also want language that allows the GTF to see the files/have access to the files. Still, there's movement here.

12:50 p.m. Moving to our counters. Article 17, Appointment/Reappointments.  We're accepting the administration's language governing summer tuition costs not being a basis for hiring decisions.  We are rejecting the language governing layoffs, because it's redundant, given language in other articles.  We are reasserting section 5 to state clearly that the contract offered is not a binding contract, i.e. that the years of funding offered are not guaranteed.  The admin responds that they need specific examples of departments where the years offered are not fulfilled.  It' hard to see how that's a response to the request for transparency we're making.

We're accepting the language that allows a GTF to get a summer tuition waiver in order to graduate in summer term(s). No more "summer sandwich." Just "summer tuition waiver."

12:55 p.m. Article 18, Fees.  We're offering that summer fees remain the same and AY fees be dropped to $31/term.  This is a concession from our "no fees" stance and our original stance on summer fees.

12:57 p.m. Layoffs, we're reasserting our language to (1) prevent departments from laying off GTFs to save money, and (2) to ensure the admin and the department shoulders the risk for fluctuating enrollments, seeing as the GTF has no ability to control for fluctuations in enrollments, yet currently the GTF bears the whole burden for them.  Layoffs of this sort are rare, so the proposed cost the university would be minimal, plus a working GTF is still providing surplus labor value to the university, because that GTF is likely still not making a living wage.

1:00 p.m. Article 21, Wages. We are reasserting our 5.5% wage floor increase.  Our members have indicated this is our No. 1 priority, and we assert that we will not back down from this proposal.

1:01 p.m. Article 22, Tuition Waivers.  We're re-inserting language that the admin make it clear exactly what fees the GTF is responsible for.  We're also proposing our AY fees being lowered to $31/term, as a concession for our concession on summer fees.

1:04 p.m. Moving on to Health Care.  We're accepting the non-trust-busting language.

We're reasserting the operating budget for the Trust be increased to $92K. Last offer from admin was $90K.

We're returning our proposals for major dental and vision, and arguing the admin has thus far refused to discuss the substance of the proposals, and had instead simply rejected them.  We are, however, inserting language that the university not be responsible for increase to any non-bargained benefit, but the university will be responsible for increases to the premiums due to bargained benefits, in accordance with the 95/5 split that every other unit on campus has in place.  We don't understand why we would be a special case.  We could have just added dental and vision under the current language and passed that cost along the the university.  We didn't do that, and we're adding language that now prevents us from adding any non-bargained benefit.

We are pointing out that the admin's last proposal was so regressive, that in a premium year like last year, where we had a 24% rate increase, the cost of insurance to an individual GTF increased from $62/term to $235/term.  We are pointing out that the admin has basically proposed shedding their risk and placing it on the shoulders of the (on average) cheapest group of public employees to insure in the entire state of Oregon.  The admin is not proposing to share risk; they are proposing to pass along their risk to other parties.  We are arguing that our insertion of language protecting the university from us adding non-bargained benefit(s) should assure the university we are concentrating on keeping the cost of premiums down, while maintaining the risk-sharing 95/5 split currently in place in our contract, and the contract of every other unit on campus.  We argue that a hard cap on premium increases is both regressive and unnecessary.

In sum: the admin is trying to turn our health care package into a profit engine for the university.

We are also reasserting the paid leave language. Once gain, the associated cost to the university of paid leave is roughly equal to the bonus paid to the basketball coach last month.

We are now pointing out that the admin's economic proposals are clearly aimed at cost-cutting, when the university is not demonstrably in financial straits such that the admin needs to cut back on GTF salary and benefits.  We point out the the package offered by the admin in the last session is actually a worse deal than we currently have.

Or currently had, seeing as WE ARE CURRENTLY WITHOUT A CONTRACT, and the admin is still proposing cutbacks.

1:20 p.m. Caucusing. Radio silence.

1:50 p.m. And we're back.  Just an update, so far today, Fancy Lawyer has cost the university $580 in tuition money.

We're TA'ing Article 10.  We're agreeing to try and TA Article 9 on Friday.  The admin has no questions about our economic counters.

UPDATE: NEXT SESSION HAS BEEN CHANGED TO MEET FROM 3-5 IN FENTON 110. THERE MAY BE FURTHER UPDATES, CHECK THE FB GROUP.