Building a union

Strike, protests, rallies part of the Graduate Employees Union contract history

The Graduate Employees Union’s new contract goes into effect today, and the union’s members will receive better wages and health care – issues that the union has been fighting for since its formation in 2001. The issues have been at the forefront of the union’s concerns during the years, especially during its two previous contract negotiations in 2002 and 2005.

“This year it seems like we got more,” said Melissa Fore, the vice president of the union during the 2004-05 academic year. “I think the wage increase could have been better, but I’m not disappointed. In 2005 we took what we could get, I don’t know if I would say I was excited about that.”

With the new contract, union members will receive a stepped wage increase, with a 3 percent increase the first year, followed by 2.75 and 2.5 percent increases in the following years.

But getting to that point hasn’t been simple.

“Contract negotiations are never easy,” Karen Klomparens, dean of the Graduate School, said in an e-mail. “Success requires trust by both sides and a willingness to focus on the important issues that matter most to the most members of the (union).”

Previous contracts were building blocks for this year’s contract, members said.

The 2005 contract provided partial-payment for birth control, as well as 20 mental health visits per year. The new contract allows for 25 mental health visits per year, and union members pay even less for birth control.

“(In 2005), access to mental health and birth control were significant gains,” said Sandra Schmidt, president of the union. “We built upon those this time.”

“We kind of set the stage for wanting better birth control coverage, which we did not have before 2005,” Fore said.

In addition, the 2008 contract reduces co-pay for mental health visits from $30 to $10 a visit.

The negotiations for this year’s contract were similar to years past, and included rallies and demonstrations.

And this year, the contract was resolved with only the threat of a strike, unlike the 2002 negotiations.

On April 25, 2002, more than 500 people participated in a one-day strike to support the union in their talks with the university.

“We needed to take some action in order to get the goals we were seeking,” said Scott Henkel, president of the union from 2002-04. “Many people think about fairness, quality and justice as abstract things. In reality, there has to be a struggle for these things – that strike was the moment of struggle.”

An agreement between the administration and the union was reached April 26, 2002. The union members received a wage increase of 3.5 percent for the rest of the 2002 spring semester, a 2 percent increase for the 2002-03 and 2003-04 school years and a 3 percent increase for the 2004-05 school year.

Other aspects of the contract included health care and a tuition waiver for the fall and spring semesters, covering up to nine credits per semester.

Wage increases and health care were the most important parts of the contract, Henkel said.

“(Teaching assistants) had gone without pay raises of any real substance for something like the previous 13 years,” he said. “When rent goes up and the price of milk goes up, but your wages don’t go up, you’re getting poorer.”

While the union viewed its first contract as a victory for graduate students, the contract did not guarantee smooth sailing for them.

Within months of the contract’s ratification, the union became concerned that some teaching assistants were still being underpaid. Union members thought the university was intentionally misinterpreting the language of the contract.

The contract stated that teaching assistants with at least four semesters of experience would be raised to the third level of pay in a three-tier system. The university was not promoting many teaching assistants who had completed this requirement, due to the murky language.

“I think the words ‘at least’ mean at least,” MSU President M. Peter McPherson told The State News on Oct. 14, 2002.

But the union members believed teaching assistants should be promoted as soon as they completed the four semesters of experience. To solve the conflict, an arbitrator was brought in to listen to both arguments and make a decision.

The union won the arbitration.

“What happened was the administration had to give all of the teaching assistants back pay to reflect the work they should have been doing at level three,” Henkel said. “I got a paycheck of around $600. It was a major victory.”

In the spring of 2004, many union members feared that teaching assistant positions would be lost, due to the $20 million in budget cuts the university faced that year.

The union led a march across campus on April 29, 2004, during which more than 150 people participated to defend the teaching assistants.

“Many (jobs) were saved because of the marches,” Henkel said. “In my department, all of the TA lines that were scheduled to be cut in 2004 were retained.”

Henkel said the union and university worked together in order to put pressure on the state government to make sure that funds for MSU came through.

In 2005, the union did not strike while negotiating a new contract.

“I think the fact that we had a walkout in 2002 did impact our negotiations in 2005,” said Jen Nichols, a member of the union from 2001-06. “Perhaps it made a difference in how willing the university was to negotiate with us in order to avoid a walkout.”

But members still held a rally and threatened a potential walkout, showing their concern for a fair contract in different ways.

“We had to do a lot of actions to get people to take notice,” Fore said.

“We drove around in a huge trail of cars advertising we were going to lose parking, and we sent 400 valentines to President Simon.”

The biggest issue for the union in 2005, besides a fair wage increase, was the threat to take the teaching assistants’ parking rights out of the contract, Fore said. This may not have taken away their parking but would take away their legal right.

It also was a concern in 2008.

“(2005) was the first time it was talked about that being reality,” she said. “A lot of people were worried they would have to take commuter buses.”

The parking right was maintained in both 2005 and 2008.

There also was a wage increase of 2.25 percent for the 2005-06 year, with a 2 percent increase for the following two years.

Despite how far the union has come, there are some benefits the members have received that are not written in the contracts.

“The most important things we’ve gained are a voice in our own working lives, the ability to voice agreements when we’re treated unfairly and the ability to come together and have some say in our working conditions,” Nichols said.

Published on Thursday, May 15, 2008