I’ve got a DOUBLE-WHAMMY of bargaining news for you this fine Friday.
THIS MONDAY, JULY 20TH, 2-4PM, we are having our REGULAR bargaining session, and then (drumroll please)… we are having our FIRST MOU #2 IMPACT BARGAINING SESSION.
What does that mean? WELL: we will be bargaining our normal CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) for the first half of our Monday, July 20th session: increase in stipends, paychecks over winter break, and an end to the proration that cuts your paychecks back until you’re taking home thousands of dollars LESS than your contract PROMISED. THEN, after we present that to the administration, we will be switching gears and presenting our FIRST draft of our MOU #2: COVID-19 2: The “This Is Still Happening.”
An MOU, if you’ve forgotten or are just tuning in, is a “Memorandum of Understanding”: kind of a mini-contract dealing with specific issues. In this case, we’re doing this because FSU’s “reopening” plan is different from the terms of our usual contract: online teaching, PPE provisions, lab restrictions, &c. So instead of bargaining this stuff as part of our REGULAR contract, we’re taking on these issues in “impact bargaining”: bargaining about specific situations that aren’t the normal order of operations that our contract expects.
Basically, it’s TWO-FOR-ONE MONDAYS here at Bargaining!! And YOU all are invited to join us!
Want to know what you can do to help? First: SHOW UP. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell that colleague you don’t really like but you have their phone number anyway. Get them ALL to come out to bargaining, because the MORE of us that show up at every bargaining session, the STRONGER we are. These last THREE bargaining sessions we’ve had more than TWO DOZEN Graduate Assistants each time! Can we put those numbers to SHAME? Can we get THREE dozen Graduate assistants into the virtual room? FOUR DOZEN? It’s down to YOU, our members, to make that happen!
SECOND thing you can do to help: send us your IMPACT STATEMENTS. Has a higher-up disciplined you off-the-books? Have you lost out on research opportunities, teaching positions, lab groups because a supervisor decided to punish you? We need YOUR story! You can remain anonymous, but please, e-mail us at info@fsugau.org. We want to show the administration that this is a problem that exists and needs solving. If you have stories about the burden of high fees, low stipends, or high health insurance costs, we’d ALSO love to hear it!
Looking forward to seeing ALL of you there. Let's pack that ZROOM ("Zoom Room")!
In Solidarity,
Vincenza Antonetta Berardo
Chief Negotiator, UFF-FSU-GAU
Ph.D. Candidate
Philosophy Department
Florida State University
