IMPORTANT: UIC SEIU FILES NOTICE OF INTENT TO STRIKE

Yesterday, April 11th, our union brothers and sisters in Service Employees International United (SEIU) Local 73 at UIC officially filed a notice of their Intent to Strike. They have been working without a contract for almost two years yet the University has constantly stalled negotiations and have bargained unprofessionally. We are calling on all GEO members to stand in solidarity with SEIU as they fight for a fair contract.

SEIU represents the most underpaid workers on campus yet the University is offering them no raises after the top 28 University of Illinois administrators received an average 5.86 percent wage increase over the last two years on top of their already six figure salaries. The work of the clerical, technical, and maintenance workers is vital to the day-to-day operations of the University and its hospital. Without them, there would be no clean classrooms or facilities for faculty and teaching assistants to teach in, less support for patient care in the hospitals, and far less efficiency in the administrative offices across campus. UIC will not be a “World Class University” as long as it continues to depress the wages of the workers who are integral to the University’s basic functions while bloating the salaries of redundant administrators at the top.

Recently, the University of Illinois has adopted a more aggressive stance towards unions on campuses, spending increasing amounts on anti-union lawyers. Workers and unions across the country are standing up–from the University of California grad employee strike to the research assistants organizing in Michigan and the hospital workers now on strike at John Hopkins University–and fighting corporatization and austerity measures in higher education that only serve to undermine the strength of the university. But we are strong when we stand together, when we stand up for public higher education. UIC works because we—the students, faculty, and workers—do!

In solidarity,

Steering Committee

Graduate Employees’ Organization

University of Illinois at Chicago

Local 6297 IFT-AFT, AFL-CIO

www.uic-geo.net

Marissa Baker, Co-President

Gina Gemmel, Co-President

Lydia Hou, Secretary

Daniel Ingebretson, Treasurer

Davis Smith-Brecheisen, Co-Communications Chair

Jesse Holzman, Co-Communications Chair

Alyssa Greenberg, Grievance Chair

Jes Cook, Outreach Chair

Jen Phillis, Co-Chief Steward

Edgar Bering, Co-Chief Steward