GEO met with the UIC administration on Tuesday for our fifth session as we continue working hard at securing a fair contract for all of our members. This was our first 2 hour session, which we felt was much more productive and less taxing on our bargaining team members. We want to thank the members who showed up and provided incredibly helpful comments during our caucus sessions-that is one of the most important parts of bargaining, and coming to the sessions and being involved in the caucuses makes certain your voices are heard!
At the beginning of the session, we further explained and talked through why we had serious concerns and reservations with the Discipline and Dismissal counterproposal the administration gave us last time. We articulated that they removed a lot of what made our proposal a positive progressive discipline model, and were concerned that it seemed they removed steps of the discipline process, which we view as regressive from status quo contract language. After a productive conversation explaining our concerns, the university took their counterproposal back and re-worked it in a caucus session, and brought a new counter-proposal to the table which addressed some, but not all, of the concerns we mentioned.
We also asked if the University had re-considered our Hours of Work and Class Size and No Strike, No Lockout proposal, asking again if they at least wanted to take it to a caucus session. The university again refused. We suspect we will have to continue pushing for this proposal, even though it is still nonsensical that the university is refusing BASIC contract language protections.
Next, we presented our Leaves and Holidays proposal. UIC recently changed its system-wide policy on parental and bereavement leave (increasing from 2 weeks to 6 weeks; and 3 days to 5 days). Our proposal expands upon this change, asking for 12 weeks of paid parental leave (as 6 weeks is still far too short), additional sick days, and updating our contract language to reflect the new bereavement leave change to 5 days. We also added language that made bereavement leave more expansive, allowing assistants to take up to 5 days of paid bereavement leave for anyone close to the assistant. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have also added language that during any local/state/or federal medical emergency, GEO and the university will be able to negotiate for additional paid sick and parental leave. Finally, we added language that department heads/supervisors will not discourage assistants from using their contractual paid sick leave and personal day. Two members of the bargaining team shared personal experiences where this has happened to them, particularly with not taking a personal day, to show why this language and added protection is so important for us to add.
Both GEO and the University then spent the rest of the time in our caucus rooms. The GEO caucus room was very lively and productive-we got very close to finalizing a counterproposal on Discipline and Dismissal, and plan to pass that back in our next session. The university said they “hope” to give us a counterproposal on Leaves and Holidays. Our next session will be on Tuesday, July 6th, from 1-3pm via Zoom. It is important that we continue to show up in large numbers, especially as we get closer to Fall semester and start bringing forward the proposals crucial to our bargaining platform (for a reminder, see attached)!
Leave a Reply