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UMass graduate worker union rallys on campus

Date: 8/23/2022

AMHERST – The Graduate Employee Organization (GEO), the on-campus graduate worker union for the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass) rallied at the UMass Campus Center on Aug. 12 to fight for contract negotiations, ending fees for employees, safeguarding harassment protection and more.

During the rally, a banner was hung from the parking garage and in the background of the rally. The banner read, “Graduate Workers Deserve Fair Wages … Abolish Fees Now!”. Other signs from the dozens of protestors included messages including “Pay Me,” “People Over Profit,” “Fees = Wage Theft,” “UMass Amherst Would be Nothing Without Graduate Workers,” and “Pay Cuts in This Economy???”.

Antonis Gounalakis, an economics steward and the GEO’s mobilization coordinator, remembered living on $600 paychecks when he first signed on six years ago and said his wages still haven’t increased.

“I remember six years ago, when as an incoming graduate student, we had to pay this exorbitant amount of fees from our paycheck and again, we had to live with just $600,” Gounalakis said. “Back then though, the rent and the housing was $500 at best in the Northampton area. Compared to today, most people have to live outside in Springfield, in Holyoke, in Greenfield, they have to commute hours every day because rent has increased 40 to 50 percent, especially in the last few years.”

Gounalakis continued to speak about rapid layoffs from service workers like in the library and dining halls following COVID-19, saying UMass “laid off everybody that they could.”

“Fast-forward to today, what is the situation today that everyone has experienced?” The speaker asked. “Rent up 40 to 50 percent, gas prices through the roof, food prices increasing and how is the university supporting us? With stagnant wages, they are not giving us our fair share. They are letting us [lose] our place in power, they are making us worse off every day and what they want us to do is accept poverty wages.”

UMass Executive Director of Strategic Communications Ed Blaguszewski said the university has been “bargaining in good faith with GEO since approximately Nov. 2021.

“We are hopeful that we will reach a fair agreement with GEO that is comparable to what other employee unions have agreed to in negotiations,” Blaguszewski said.

GEO Co-Chair Cai Barias said the union and university had debated compensation packages near the end of June 2022. The speaker said they had been debating how much their raise would be, including non-working fellows in the bargaining unit, and removing fees.

“Until now, it’s been pretty stagnant from the university side,” Barias said. “We gave them our proposals today. We reverted to a 10 percent wage increase as our asking raise, we asked them to remove all fees and to include all non-working fellows into the bargaining unit. We took some time to talk and they came back with a proposed framework that we have yet to see in writing, but we feel like it is a step in the right direction based on the escalation and the organizing that we’ve been doing out here and now at the bargaining table.”

Barias said the university “seems willing to take steps in the right direction” on including non-working fellows into the bargaining unit and eliminating fees.

“That doesn’t mean that our work out here is done,” Barias said. “With all of this sort of well-meaning, positive movement, they offered to extend our contracts for two years as long as it’s poverty wages until 2025. They’re not budging on their 6 percent raise, which is 2 percent for several years until 2025. This is important that we push back on this, because it means that we can’t change anything else in our contract until 2025.”

The GEO sent a letter to UMass Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy dated July 25, 2022, outlining their demands and calling “attention to the fact that the UMass administration refuses to negotiate a fair contract with its graduate employees – to treat us with dignity and respect.”

The letter later says that the GEO has been attempting to bargain in good faith with UMass since the bargaining process began in 2020.

“Even after hearing dozens of testimonials about our economic circumstances – being forced to choose between medical needs, groceries, rent and utilities, and other basic necessities – the administration has made it clear that they just don’t care,” the letter reads.

The letter claims that Subbaswamy’s administration has treated higher education “like an exploitative business, squeezing every bit of profit from its students and workers.” That letter has already amassed hundreds of signatures in support from UMass graduate students and employees, alumni, staff members, community members and more. The full letter can be viewed and signed, along with more information available online at geouaw.org.