We’re happy to report that at our latest bargaining session Friday, we TA’d articles 6 (workload) and 15 (union deductions)! This means that we can set these aside for the rest of bargaining!
Article 6 In Article 6, we won definitions of assigned positions and workload expectations. What that means is if you are a course instructor, it is codified that part of your responsibilities may include syllabus creation and prep time, which means you should be getting paid for that work. If you are a TA with grading responsibilities, that means you should be getting paid for the full length of the grading period, including the two days after finals week, before grades are due. Although this isn’t a “financial” article, what we won will have positive financial ramifications for GAs! We also won the right to workload audits starting from week 1 of classes. That means if in the first week of the semester you find yourself working tens of hours more than you’re being paid for, you can demand your situation be rectified, either through pay adjustments, workload adjustments, &c.
Article 15 For Article 15, we won the right to receive payroll data upon request which shows any “dropped” members from one paycheck to the next. This is important because although there are legitimate reasons to stop being a member of the union—you graduate, you switch drops, you drop out, or you just decide you don’t want to be a member anymore—sometimes members are dropped in error. This harms GAs because if you do not realize you’re no longer a member, the union cannot protect you if you need us. What we’ve won here should help us prevent that from happening! Right now the next bargaining session hasn’t been scheduled yet, so we’ve got a summer break (kind of) to keep working on the other articles we’re planning to present. When we schedule the next bargaining session, we hope to be able to make some progress on Article 8 (Sexual Harassment), Article 10 (Leaves of Absence), and Article 19 (Discipline). To do that, we could use your help.
Impact Statements A big reason we’re making all this progress on the articles is because of member pressure. It’s all thanks to YOU that we’re starting to see some turnaround on the articles we’ve given them. But we’ve got to keep it up. If you have a story you’d like to share about sexual assault, harassment, or discrimination you’ve experienced at FSU, we want to hear from YOU. We still have their UNACCEPTABLE proposal to RETURN TO THE STATUS QUO on sexual harassment policies, and we NEED your stories telling us why those policies have FAILED. Without your stories, the administration has no reason to think their practices on sexual assault, harassment, or biased discipline are anything other than effective. Impact statements can be anonymous, and we will read them for you.
Looking to seeing you all again in August—in person!!—and hope you guys enjoy the last few weeks of summer. Stay tuned for another summer social event and of course plenty of orientation events from your union, as well as some fun projects we’ve got cooking up for the fall! Until then, remember: United We Bargain, Divided We Beg!
In Solidarity, Vincenza Antonetta Berardo Chief Negotiator & Bargaining Chair
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