The Graduate Employees’ Organization and the University’s Labor and Employee Relations staff reached a tentative agreement for incorporating research assistants into the GEO’s collective bargaining unit on Monday.
The agreement increases the number of GEO-represented students at the University by nearly double, according to the University.
The two parties reached a deal at a negotiation session at the Illini Union on Monday morning. RAs must still vote to ratify the agreement before it takes effect, and details of the tentative deal have not yet been released.
Will Wightkin, a GEO steward and graduate student studying molecular and cellular biology, confirmed the tentative agreement in a statement to The Daily Illini. Patrick Wade, the University’s director of executive communications and issues management, wrote in an email to The DI that the University is optimistic about next steps.
“The university is pleased that the parties reached tentative agreement, and we are hopeful that the research assistants will ratify the agreement in the near future,” Wade wrote.
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The agreement comes after two weeks of negotiations regarding how benefits and protections currently guaranteed to teaching assistants, graduate assistants and pre-professional graduate assistants will be extended to RAs.
Some benefits and protections outlined in the GEO’s collective bargaining environment include minimum salaries, health, dental and vision insurance, as well as tuition and fee waivers. The specific details about which benefits and protections will apply to RAs have not yet been released to the public by either the GEO or the University.
The GEO Local 6300’s bargaining unit was expanded after a majority of RAs voted in favor of union representation in an election organized and ratified by the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board in July. The election was triggered after 35% of RAs at the University — or more than 1,200 out of 3,700 total — signed authorization cards in May requesting that the GEO be their collective bargaining representative.
