Contract Update and Paycut Request Information

As we reported in our last e-newsletter, a request has been made from the Office of State Employment Relations (OSER) to have TAA members give up our duly-negotiated wage increases. Our Executive Board considered this request for a paycut to be imposed upon all TAs and PAs and debated it at length at our meeting tonight. We will recommend at the next General Membership Meeting that our union reject this request to cut graduate assistant wages.

While this request can be summarily dismissed or rejected by our elected Executive Board, we believe that it is best that a matter of our contract such as this should be considered and acted upon by all rank-and-file members through a General Membership Meeting. Again, at the next GMM, the Executive Board will submit a motion to reject OSER’s request of us to give back our contractually guaranteed wage increase. At this meeting, we as the membership can vote to approve the motion and reject OSER’s request or we can vote to accept it. If we reject it, nothing will change except the increases in our paychecks. If we accept it, then the matter must be voted upon by our entire membership via balloting.

This General Membership Meeting will be scheduled as soon as possible when graduate assistants return to campus in large numbers in late-summer/early-fall.

The Executive Board will recommend rejection of this request because we do not believe that TAs and PAs should give up wage increases for a number of reasons, to be enumerated and explained in our General Membership Meeting. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact Co-Presidents Katie Lindstrom and Peter Rickman.