Statement released on 5/12:
On Monday evening, our members voted to continue striking past the grading deadline and reassess the situation this Thursday, May 14th. We will decide our next steps in a Strike Huddle on Thursday evening, time/location TBD. Please come to this huddle on Thursday and be a part of the decision. We also have a bargaining session with UIC from 10am-12pm on Thursday via zoom. Please consider attending bargaining to help better inform your decision.
The grading deadline for the spring semester is Wednesday, May 13th, so this means that we are asking graduate workers not to submit grades. We believe our ability to withhold grades at this critical moment is one of our biggest leverage points in our bargaining with the university.
We are currently in as strong a position as we are likely to be for the near future. UIC United Faculty (the faculty union) is advocating that its membership refuses to enter grades based on ungraded material, and is taking action at the bargaining table and in the courts to prevent their members being coerced to break our strike. According to the faculty’s contract, they are not required to take on responsibilities of graduate workers without bargaining, which is effectively what the administration is asking of them. Therefore, they have the right and the solidaristic responsibility not to submit grades for classes with uncompleted TA grading. We encourage you to have this conversation with the faculty you work with! If they have questions you can't answer, direct them to their department steward with UICUF.
We are in unprecedented times, which call for unprecedented measures. In case you missed it, in response to GEO’s strike, faculty sources have informed us that the university has made an unprecedented threat to lock graduate workers out of our jobs for the summer and the fall. However, the lockout threat is a desperate, deeply impractical measure. The university would immediately lose tuition dollars that undergraduates have already spent to take summer classes, as the only way to make good on these threats would be to cancel these classes. Denying all of these students an education for an entire summer in order to punish graduate workers lawfully on strike would also cause the university severe and lasting reputational damage.
Furthermore, any action the university takes to enter grades without the labor of graduate workers puts itself at serious reputational risk. Falsifying grades could jeopardize its accreditation, and it is impossible for legitimate grades to be entered without us. We are working on a letter in collaboration with United Faculty that we plan to submit to the accreditation board to inform them of the university’s attempts to falsify grades and unlawfully retaliate against us, which you can find a draft of here.
As of Friday, May 8th, payroll has been finalized and paychecks will be deposited before the university is able to monitor the final grade submissions. Logistically, nothing can affect your paycheck and there is no reason to give into grading now.* If they wanted to impose further financial penalties, the administration would have to place charges on our student account (illegally); then, once those payments are delinquent, they would have to request a deduction through the IL Comptroller’s office. This deduction process takes months and can be challenged.
Currently, the university is only offering us a guaranteed 2.25% raise for year one of the signed contract, which is still below the living wage for Chicago, and no guarantees following that, while we are asking for an 8%-8%-8% over the next three years. On top of that, UIC insists on increasing CampusCare costs, which effectively negates a 2.25% raise. Their failure to reasonably take steps towards our demands at the bargaining table is a major reason we have decided to keep striking.
The university doesn’t care if you have enough money to live properly or not. It’s up to us to fight for our rights and benefits. Admin has already slapped us in the face with a meager 2.25% increase, THE LOWEST INCREASE offered in the history of our union’s contract bargaining. If we allow the university’s scare tactics to work and concede to a terrible contract, the administration will take it as a sign that they can walk all over us. This contract is not just about us, nor even just about GEO--it’s about the future of higher education in Illinois and across the country! In the face of austerity and uncertainty, now is the time to keep fighting, not back down.
*To confirm if your pay was deducted, you can check your Earnings Statement here and look under “Earning Type” for a line item titled “Pay Reduction/Strike”.