Members of the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation and its sympathizers took to Johnson Hall Friday afternoon to rally as contract negotiations between the union and the University of Oregon administration began to plunge into disarray.
Culminating after a week of voting, in which union members authorized a strike for fall term, GTFF members squatted in the lobby of Johnson Hall from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. as part of a union-wide work-in then took the lawn with pickets and chants for changes at the bargaining table. Union members, some of whom joined just this week in order to vote, okayed the strike with 98 percent voting yes.
“I think it’s been successful,” said Matthew Hannah, a fifth-year Ph.d student in the English department. “We’ve never seen strike authorization numbers like these as GTFs before. Ever.”
If talks between the two sides continue to deteriorate and they reach an impasse, the state requires 15 days of state-run mediation followed by a month-long cooling off period. Considering about 1,000 graduate assistants won’t even be in Eugene this summer, union leaders want to hold off until they’re at full strength at the start of the 2014-15 school year.
GTFs crowded the main level of the administration’s house for three hours, grading assignments and doing their own homework. Mock traffic signs were printed and hung around entryways calling for improvements to their previous contract, which ran out March 31. The GTFF are still obligated to work until a strike or a new contract is ratified. At around 1 p.m., graduate assistants crowded around the hedged ‘O’ on the lawn and chanted at the administration.
“The work of graduate students and GTFs in particular is important and the activities inside and outside of Johnson Hall were fine by our standards,” university spokeswoman Julie Brown said. “They weren’t blocking any entrances and everyone was very respectful.”
Disagreements in the bargaining room remain. The union called for a vote after the May 14 bargaining session in which the university team ended early and cancelled the next day’s meeting.
“There’s this attitude that somehow we are charity cases when in reality what we do allows them to have this number of students. What we do allows them for admissions,” said Brianna Bertoglio, an operations officer with the union. “You can’t teach thousands and thousands of students at a particular time as you add more and more students. You can’t do any of that without an army of GTFs who provide a third of classroom hours.”
In response to the vote, the university’s bargaining team wrote a statement saying that it is “disappointing that the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation organized a strike vote this week while the teams are still at the table working toward an agreement.” Friday afternoon’s session saw the administration’s team glance off the protests and focus solely on non-financial topics. The GTFF bargaining team maintains that the organization’s chief points are to receive a cost-of-living bump in take-home pay, better vision and dental benefits, and changes to the paid leave structure.
The GTFF is currently asking for a 5.5 percent annual pay bump, but the administration is countering with 3 percent. Coupled with disputes over health insurance, tuition paid leave, the university and the GTFF have no current plans to return to the table to discuss anything with any price tags attached.