Negotiation between the University of Minnesota and the Graduate Labor Union (GLU) resumed Thursday.
Negotiations were halted on Oct. 11 because the University filed a unit clarification petition with the Bureau of Mediation Services (BMS) to determine whether fellows should be included in negotiations. This resulted in BMS filing a Maintenance of Status Quo order, halting negotiations.
Since negotiations halted, the GLU Bargaining Committee prepared to organize a strike authorization vote to get the University to resume negotiations, said Sam Boland, GLU Bargaining Committee member. It was not a decision GLU takes lightly, said Boland.
On Oct. 25, three days before GLU’s scheduled strike vote, GLU received communication from the University’s legal team expressing interest in resuming negotiations if GLU canceled the vote, Boland said.
GLU was able to reach an agreement with the University to resume negotiations on a contract for graduate assistants, Boland said. GLU hopes to include fellows in negotiations once a contract is agreed upon for Graduate Assistants.
The University and GLU held bargaining sessions on Nov. 7 and 8 with additional sessions scheduled on Nov. 21, 22 and Dec. 9.
“The University values our graduate students and the contributions they make both as students and as graduate assistants,” said a University spokesperson in an email to the Minnesota Daily. ”We continue to bargain in good faith and in accordance with our principles.”
Boland said both GLU and the University are bound in their agreement of good faith to try and reach a negotiation for a fair contract.
“If we determine we can’t make an agreement at that point, we can file for clarification with the Bureau of Mediation Services, but we believe we won’t really need to do that,” Boland said. “The University largely backed off their position that no fellow should be included.”
For graduate students like Olivia Wood, resuming negotiations means that the University listened to its employees and is willing to bargain in good faith.
“I’m starting to feel hopeful again,” Wood said. “I think we will hopefully have a contract that is able to give workers what we need and what we deserve. I hope that the University follows through on this action and actually bargains in good faith and takes the union’s and workers’ concerns seriously.”
Wood said one of the issues most important to her on GLU’s proposed contract was fair pay as almost no graduate workers make a livable wage for Hennepin County. Rent and energy costs take most of her paychecks. Wood is hoping to come to an agreement with the University to cover the cost of extra fees for all students, especially international students.
“It’s feeling like a real squeeze, and there are definitely people who are in worse off situations than I am, which is also part of what we’re fighting for,” Wood said. “We’re hoping to get the U to cover fees for all students, including international students who have an extra burden of fees on top of just the normal student fees.”
Wood hopes that by resuming the contract negotiations, GLU can reduce the disparity between international graduate students and domestic graduate students so all students can study and contribute to the University, regardless of where they are from.
GLU is excited and hopeful to continue negotiating for a fair contract, Boland said.
“We’re very happy with how things worked out, and we feel that, like this agreement that we reached was a big win for us,” Boland said. “Because we went from bargaining being suspended indefinitely.”
