march 20th bargaining update

To: GEO members!

THANKS to the awesome momentum that has been building over the course of the week due to the hard work of GEO members, today in bargaining we had movement at the table!

This is what happened: GEO received important proposals on both salaries and benefits from the administration's bargaining team. On salaries,their wage proposal remains at 3% for 3 years. (3, 3, 3) the admin. However, their proposal included a 150 dollar "competitive adjustment" addition to the first year of our contract---which would essentially bring the first year to 3.9%---still well short of the 9% ask set by the strike proposal. They did not move on wage parity.

On benefits the administration did offer to extend full health care to members working at .20 (our current contract provides full health care coverage for .25 and above). This is a central issue for employees working at lower-fractions and potentially a big win for our union.

Importantly,the administration's bargaining team is packaging their proposals so that if we want to accept one of their proposals it is necessarily tied to all of the other proposals in the package. In other words.....at this stage in bargaining nothing is guaranteed until we sign a final agreement. As membership we need to continue to have conversations about priorities and these will happen during caucus sessions, stewards meetings, and the meeting on monday the 24th at the GEO office at 7pm.

This is a very important thing to keep in mind---what it essentially means is that we need to keep the pressure on the University. The threat of a walkout, today's rally, and the turnout at bargaining are examples of the kinds of pressure that we need to continue to exert to have the administration keep moving.

Thanks to EVERYONE who turned out to the rally and bargaining today.....let's keep the momentum going and win strong contract!
Solidarity,

Colleen Woods
Lead Negotiator