2025-2028 Bargaining Blog: Sessions 0 & 1!

Hi everyone! My name is Xanthippe, and I am a master’s student in the English department. I am also your GAU Bargaining Chair and Chief Negotiator, where I am responsible for leading the research effort for and negotiating out our 2025-2028 Collective Bargaining Agreement. I would like to apologize for my delay in posting these recaps. All that said, let’s get into the nitty gritty: bargaining sessions 0 and 1. 

Session 0

On Monday, March 10th, the first Monday of Spring Break, GAU’s team met with FSU for the first bargaining session of the season. We were eager, dressed to impress, and admittedly, a little nervous. We started with a coffee tailgate in some spitting rain in the Training Center parking lot, and walked out with a set of ground rules for the forthcoming series of bargaining sessions. 

It was a…tense session, to put it nicely. GAU went into the session, planning to present the FSU team with ground rules, and they had a similar approach. Our lists were similar, but varied minorly. We went through three rounds of drafts before we settled on a final set, approved and signed by myself and Rebecca Peterson, one of FSU’s co-chief negotiators. The other, Michael Mattimore, was not present for session 0. If you would like, you may view the final iteration of ground rules on our (soon to be) documents log page under the bargaining tab. 

After we settled on this list of ground rules, GAU issued a proposed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to initiate impact bargaining in order to address the impacts on GAs of the different federal funding freezes and adjustments. If you would like to know more about impact bargaining, MOU’s, and other processes like these, visit our (soon to be)bargaining FAQ. We made no financial requests, but instead asked for things like reassignment and extended research time. Like the ground rules, the initial proposal of this document can be found under our (soon to be ) documents log under the bargaining tab. As of now, when I am writing this, FSU has yet to comment on the proposed MOU. 

Session 1

On Friday, March 28th, GAU’s team met with FSU for the second time for session one. I call the first session, session zero, because in that session no proposals were exchanged. Session one is named in this way because this is the first session where we exchanged proposals. I went in with proposals for articles one, five, six, and eighteen from our Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). We emailed them our proposals ahead of time. 

Article one deals with recognition, and our revisions have to do with securing a fully accessible bargaining unit list to aid in our organizing effort. We are currently one of the few GAU Chapters in Florida that does NOT have access to a full bargaining unit list. FSU issued a counter proposal, and struck our request for the bargaining unit list in full. We chose to hold our response in session one and present our counter at a later date. 

Article five deals with academic freedom, and our revisions aimed to do a number of things. We aim to secure rights for GAs to practice the same freedoms as other individuals, allowing GAs to freely engage in creative and scholarly activities and publish the results of those activities, holding the administration accountable to commitments to protecting acts of free speech and research conducted by GAs, and to maintain and encourage the university as a site of academic discourse and discussion. FSU chose not to issue a counter proposal for article five during session one, and has chosen to issue a counter proposal at a later date. 

Article six addresses workload. We requested communication of class cap size increase no more than a month prior to the start of the assignment period. FSU issued a counter proposal where they proposed that departments will make a reasonable effort to communicate any changes to assignments (e.g. changes to class sizes) as soon as practicable. We chose to hold our response in session one and present our counter at a later date. 

Article eighteen deals with other employee rights. GAU is concerned with safety of sensitive student materials (all student materials, as far as we’re concerned) and safety and condition of GA work spaces. We requested ensured, secure spaces for sensitive student meetings and materials in university-issued and assigned GA work spaces, and for departments to replace these spaces if they are compromised. We also requested regular workplace inspection and monitoring to ensure the condition, quality, and safety of assigned GA work spaces. FSU’s team struck our request for private spaces completely and amended our request for regular inspection and control something more broad about the regular inspection of campus buildings to ensure the safety of GAs, faculty, and staff. GAU chose to hold our response in session one and present our counter at a later date. 

We ended our session with asking about our proposed MOU from session zero, and FSU was not prepared to comment at that time. With that, we concluded session one. 

If you have any questions, please reference our (soon to be) FAQ page, or email bargaining@fsugau.com. If you are curious about viewing some of the documents I discuss, check out the (soon to be)documents log page under the bargaining tab on our home page. If you would like to view our sessions, feel free to check out our youtube videos on the Bargaining GAU channel! I will check back in after session two. 

In Solidarity and With Love, 

Xanthippe