On the Ground With GEO #1

In this first ever issue of On the Ground With GEO, an interview series about union life, we hear from Christianna. Christianna (she/her) is a GEO staff member. On November 22, we got together to talk about her day-to-day work, GEO achievements, and what it’s like to be a union organizer.

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

My family is in Greece. I got into labor and union stuff because my mom was an immigrant here and had a union at her workplace. I did a lot of anti-fascist organizing for queer liberation back in Ohio. I've also been pretty involved in Palestinian liberation events and I do jail support for protesters.

What else? I like movies. I think I'm a film bro. “I Saw the TV Glow” is one of my favorite recent movies that came out. It's from a trans director and It's about seeing being trans and seeing yourself through TV shows growing up.

Why did you choose to work for GEO?

I wanted to work for a member-run and driven union. I do not believe, like, fundamentally in relying on business model unionism and bureaucratic unionism, and this is why I have specifically chosen to be with GEO instead of other places who gave me work offers.

You and the other staff member, Zoe, unionized this summer – would you be ok with sharing why?

Our titles and positions were the same but my pay and benefits were worse – we wanted to fix that, and GEOSU existed before us too. There was also a concern that contracts were getting worse over time.

Thanks for sharing that! I know you do a lot of administrative work for us. What does that look like?

A lot of it is communicating with members – answering emails and questions about work issues, appointments, or about the union in general. I also send automated emails through Airtable and reminder texts through Hustle for important events. For turnout, I help with making phone calls. Another significant task is maintaining databases based on Mobius reports, updating RSVP forms.

Last year I helped a lot with social media, now we are picking that back up. I have designed a lot of the graphics and brochures we use. In person I do office walkthroughs, hang flyers. During the RA campaign, I met with people one-on-one to talk and collect signatures. Last year I had mappings done and did turf list cutting.

What is mapping and list cutting?

For the RA campaign, mapping was going around the building, figuring out office locations through self-reports and exploration. Then I would make a list of people who are non-members and their offices, and put them in order of location, like a guide. IFT volunteers also came to do that, which is a big reason the campaign actually won!

How did you get IFT to show up?

SC decided that IFT would come and help. After that, I onboarded IFT volunteers, prepared materials for them, conversation and call guides, summaries of whatever they needed to know to do office visits. We had an election for RAs to vote whether or not they wanted to unionize, and we worked to turn people out to cast their ballot over multiple days. Then there’s also PostBacs.

Tell me more about the PostBac campaign.

I’m helping PostBacs unionize too. I guide them on what an organizing conversation looks like, how to collect cards. Whenever there is a hearing, we work on this together with our lawyer, Steve. Recently we all have gone to do a legal showdown against the university to prove why PostBacs should unionize. Now they believe PostBacs should be in our unit, yay! But they said we needed more cards to reach 50%, and I only had 48 hours to do that. I worked with Shruti and Victor, and Shruti brought a couple other PostBacs. We collected more cards than needed in those 48 hours and submitted them to Steve immediately.

That sounds super intense. When did that happen?

That was last week! But this is the work that I’m used to. I don’t wanna say it’s what my job is supposed to be, because I believe in more member-led organizing and actions. But this is the type of work you’d see a typical staff organizer doing and the type of work I’ve done at my past positions.

What else have you done recently?

Yesterday I did a grievance intake – Hanna, our Grievance Chair, has that covered, but I help with representation and intake work. I also represent GEO at community events. I go to strikes and build connections with people from other unions so they know who GEO is. Yesterday I went to the Chicago Teachers Union rally.

Another important thing is providing advice for bargaining, which is going on now with RAs. In the past, Zoe was the one who did most of the representation and bargaining, and now I’m taking over these things. This week I met with Soleil and Andrew, our representative from IFT, and we talked about state health insurance. We want to see ways to get around CampusCare and secure gender-affirming healthcare in our contract. So I do that research and also answer questions at Bargaining Committee meetings.

What kind of bargaining and organizing experience did you have before that?

I have been an organizer since undergrad. Started in environmental justice organizing, then I was a digital organizer and phone banking manager for someone who ran for Congress in Illinois. After graduation I worked as a union organizer with AFSCME, I was one of their organizers for the whole state of Ohio. Most of my work there was organizing, so I’ve been training a lot in bargaining and representation lately. I will be going to all Labor Notes trainings, have a monthly professional development class, consult our IFT rep, Andrew, and do offboarding with Zoe, since they had a lot more experience in bargaining.

And if members wanted to get some of your experience, how would they reach out to you?

They can reach out through email, and we can arrange a phone call, text message, or an individual meeting some time during the day! And I try to come to Organizing Committee meetings when I can. If someone asked to meet outside of work hours that would be fine too, I would just clock that time as work. Sometimes we meet at a cafe on campus or I drop by their lab – a lot of RAs on West campus are tied down to their lab so I adapt. Like, I’ll meet people anywhere.

What is your least favorite part of the job?

Honestly, the data work is my least favorite. It’s monotonous work, but I understand that it's important and needs to get done. That way we have accurate data to reach people. So, for example, we have a list of RAs that are getting charged dues and it's like 200 people. I have to open the Mobius report and match each person’s information against over 3,000 records. I spent a lot of time this week doing that.

What is something you’re proud of for Fall 2024?

It seems like PostBacs’ unionization is going through! I don't want to jinx it, but it seems like that's following through. And they're joining the GEO bargaining unit, I’m really proud of that.

Another campaign I haven’t been as connected to but I’m really happy that there's some traction for organizing around international workers rights. Because that's something that's really important to me.

As a closing question, what would you recommend members to read about the labor movement?

I would recommend, even though it can get kind of neolib, Joe Burns books that he's written. “Class Struggle Unionism” has some good stuff in there.

Author: Michel