-------------------------------------------- Graduate Assistants United eNewsletter Vol. 1, No. 2 March 26, 2002 -------------------------------------------- ========================================= IN THIS ISSUE: Health Benefits Rally April 1 Minimum Stipend Grievance FEA Delegates Release-time positions Button-making party Health benefits survey Across the country... ========================================= HEALTH BENEFITS RALLY APRIL 1 Although 10 of the University's 12 peer institutions provide health benefits for graduate assistants, UF still does not. On April 1, GAU will be having another rally to bring public attention to the lack of health benefits for graduate assistants at UF. The rally in the Fall semester yielded 150 participants, 7 radio interviews, and 2 TV interviews. This semester's event will be held at the Plaza of the Americas, Monday, April 1, from 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM. In order to encourage participation, GAU will again give away as a door prize to one graduate assistant, one semester of premiums for the Student Health Insurance Plan B. In addition, other health-related door prizes will be awarded to any attendee, whether or not the attendee is a graduate assistant. Bring your whole class! The program begins at 12:20 PM, with the drawing at 12:45 PM. Your attendance is very important to the success of this event in our attempt to bring attention to our lack of health benefits for graduate assistants. Be sure to bring another graduate assistant with you! MINIMUM STIPEND GRIEVANCE GAU filed a grievance last semester on behalf of 417 graduate assistants who were not being paid at the minimum stipend. A complete list of those affected by this grievance is at http://grove.ufl.edu/~goeddeke/minstpgr.pdf The total dollar amount of this grievance is $33,797.82. We are currently at Step 3 of the grievance procedure, at the Chancellor's office. We should have a decision next week. If it weren't for the efforts of GAU, UF would not have a minimum stipend. GAU takes the minimum stipend seriously, and intends to do everything in its power to enforce the contract. FEA DELEGATES GAU is affiliated with the Florida Education Association, and has several delegate positions open. The primary duty of the delegates are to represent GAU at an annual FEA meeting in Orlando, with expenses paid. If you are a GAU member and interested in serving as an FEA delegate, please let GAU Co-President Frank Goeddeke (goeddeke@ufl.edu) know. RELEASE-TIME UNION POSITION As part of our labor agreement, GAU has three release-time positions. A release-time employee is a graduate assistant, who performs work for GAU instead of thier home department. GAU release-time employees do much of the behind the scenes work for our union, including maintaining the membership database, updating our web site, etc. If you are interested in one of the three release-time positions for the Fall 2002 semester, please let GAU Co-President Frank Goeddeke (goeddeke@ufl.edu) know. We are especially interested in filling one of the positions with a person with computer skills that can create a master database. BUTTON-MAKING PARTY GAU will be having a button-making party, to make buttons for the upcoming health benefits rally, and finish other last-minute preparations. The button-making party will be at 5:00 PM on Thursday, March 28, at the Shamrock. The Shamrock is on University avenue a few blocks west of 13th Street. Please come and help us put finishing touches on our health benefits rally! HEALTH BENEFITS SURVEY Within a couple weeks, you should be recieving an email from GAU asking you to participate in a short survey. Make a commitment now to complete the survey when it is posted. The purpose of this survey is to collect demographic and other information that will help us make better health benefits proposals at the bargaining table. The survey will be approximately 20 multiple choice and fill in the blank items, and should take less than 5 minutes to complete. ACROSS THE COUNTRY... Graduate assistants at the University of Illinois have been trying for several years to have union representation, but the administration there has refused to recognize the union. Recently, 41 graduate assistants risked arrest by occupying an administration building. The University blinked, and rather than arrest the graduate assistants, agreed to recognize them! Further details at: http://www.shout.net/~geo/ Graduate assistants at the University of Michigan recently won a contract that includes nearly a half million dollars for the establishment of a pilot program for child care for graduate assistants. Are you interested in what other graduate assistant unions are doing? Try these two links: http://www.aft.org/higher_ed/Grad_Employees/ http://www.cgeu.org/ ----------------------------------------------------------- You are being sent this email because Graduate Assistants United represents you in University employment matters. If you would like to be removed from this eNewsletter list, please respond to this email with the word "REMOVE" in the subject line. If you would like to be added to the list, send an email to goeddeke@ufl.edu ----------------------------------------------------------- (My sincere apologies to two people who asked to be removed but I lost thier email addresses. If you were one of those two people, please let me know and I will remove you this time)