Graduate Employees Achieve Victory in Illinois Strike

Graduate and teaching assistants were back leading their classes Nov. 18 as the Graduate Employees' Organization at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign called a successful end to a two-day strike. The job action was over just one sticking point—protection of the tuition waiver provision for all bargaining unit members. But it took the action of more than a thousand determined GEO members and supporters to make clear that the union was unwilling to bend. When the bargaining teams returned to the table, while hundreds of activists continued picketing in cold and soggy conditions, the union reached settlement with the university within hours.

According to a GEO announcement, the tentative agreement achieved gains across all four "pillars" of its original contract platform. In addition to winning protection for tuition waivers through the strike, the GEO secured an additional two weeks of unpaid parental leave, increases to the university's contribution to healthcare premiums (reaching 75 percent in the third and final year of the contract), and raises on the minimum salary, totaling 10 percent over three years.

Fellow unionists came from all over the state and region, including from Michigan, to support striking GEO members on the line.

AFT President Randi Weingarten sent a letter of support commending students for their stand. "As you confront the administration today, you are not only standing up for yourselves, you are standing up for thousands of graduate employees around the nation who may one day find themselves in a similar situation," she wrote. "The AFT has long held that universities should provide tuition waivers as a condition of employment for graduate employees. Your actions today send the unmistakable message that we will demand nothing less."

The total membership will hold a ratification vote over the course of two days. The contract runs for three years and is retroactive to August 2009. [Barbara McKenna, GEO press release]

November 18, 2009