Members of the Graduate Employee and Postdoc Union (GEU) at the University of Connecticut delivered a petition to university administrators Friday morning calling for open and transparent negotiation amid the union’s ongoing contract bargaining.
“We think that people outside the negotiating room should be able to know what’s going on in negotiations,” said Alex Kueny, vice president of the GEU. “UConn is a public university. The work that graduate students do here, research and teaching, it affects everyone in the state of Connecticut, so we think that people have a right to know.”
The university recently brought forward the proposition of a confidentiality rule during negotiations, which would bar any communication about the content of negotiations with the broader community, according to a petition released by the GEU. The petition also states that UConn is the only public university in the region to include such a measure in negotiation ground rules.
“Transparency and democracy are really important to us,” Kueny said. “It’s not just a talking point. We’re just asking them to do what their other peer institutions have done.”
Olivia Bradberry, a graduate assistant for the Natural Resources Department and member of the GEU, said that because of recent federal attacks on democracy and higher education, it is paramount that UConn stands up for the values it promotes.
“UConn, it’s time to come together for democracy and transparency for public institutions,” Bradberry said. “We say there is nothing to hide, transparent bargaining now.”
Bradberry continued and said that as a member of the bargaining committee, negotiations can proceed effectively with full representation, only if the broader community knows what is going on behind closed doors.
“We all need to know how bargaining is going,” Bradberry said. “We all need to know what kind of offers are on the table.”
University spokesperson Stephanie Reitz wrote in an email to The Daily Campus that the university does not comment on specific bargaining proposals while the process is ongoing.
GEU President Grace Easterly said that graduate and post-doctorate workers are struggling to make ends meet with the cost of living constantly rising.
“Too many grad students are living paycheck to paycheck on a grad student’s stipend,” Easterly said. “At the same time our university fees went up by 13% last year, taking back nearly 7% of our paycheck. We need the university to waive these fees and give us release.”
University fees are expected to increase in the coming years as UConn braces for reduced state funding, according to interim Vice President for Finance Reka Wrynn.
State Rep. Gregory Haddad of Mansfield attended the petition drop and said how deeply concerned he and his colleagues were at the lack of state support for its public universities and community colleges.
“Transparent negotiations are the least we can do in this environment,” Haddad said, referring to attacks on higher education and workers by the federal government.
Haddad added that the first step in productive, transparent bargaining is coming to the negotiating table in good faith.
“To make sure that we are doing the best for the University of Connecticut, the best for the people who work for it, the best for the students that we’re serving,” Haddad said. “Because that’s the ultimate goal, to make sure that we’re all taken care of with a negotiated contract that is fair and balanced.”
Nearly 1,300 of the more than 2,300 graduate workers the union represents are teachers whose working conditions have a direct impact on the quality of education across campus, according to Easterly.
Josephine Burke, a fifth-semester political science major at UConn, said that learning from graduate workers in her classes has been some of the most rewarding experiences in her college career.
“This university would not be able to function without the labor of graduate employees, which directly connects to the experience of tuition paying undergraduates,” Burke said.
Burke added that because undergraduate experiences would be impacted by terms in the graduate workers’ contract, that those students have a right to know what goes on during negotiations.
“I speak for myself and the undergraduate community when I say we care about our graduate employees,” Burke said. “We call on admin to allow transparency and democracy in bargaining.”
According to Brandon Mancilla, director of Region 9A of the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), who assists and coordinates with unions in the region, UConn has already fallen behind other universities in terms of its competitiveness in hiring.
“UConn is not just falling behind its peer institutions by not keeping up with the cost of living, without funding you properly and without having transparency at the table… They’re falling behind other employers in other sectors,” Mancilla said.
Mancilla said that he and other members at the UAW have had great success with transparent negotiations in the past, where employers were openly communicative with workers, their bargaining units and the press.
“This should not be acceptable at the University of Connecticut,” Mancilla said.
According to Easterly, the GEU will continue to fight for a UConn which lives up to the world class standard the university advertises.
“What we do here at UConn, here in Storrs, has the power to transform our state, the country and the world,” Easterly said. “We envision a university that values working people, equity, justice and advancing the public good. We are in a national moment characterized by disrespect for knowledge and truth and as workers at a taxpayer funded institution, we’re advocating for transparency.”