Seven months into negotiations, the Graduate Employees’ Organization again expressed its desire to avoid a strike during its “We Want to Work” rally on Thursday.

The rally at the Undergraduate Library came before federal mediation of contract negotiations, which begin Friday. The negotiation marks the 22nd time the GEO will meet with University administrators for negotiations since the employees’ contract expired in August.

“All we are asking of the University is to have a conversation with us,” said Peter Campbell, GEO representative.

Campbell said GEO members want to continue their work. Without a contract, more than 2,400 teaching and graduate assistants go to work uncertain of their future wages, health care and tuition waivers.

Tuition waivers are an important issue in this year’s contract negotiations, GEO spokesperson Stephanie Seawell said. Without tuition waivers, many University graduate employees would not be able to continue their degrees on campus.

“Without bargaining for tuition waivers, it doesn’t make sense to bargain wages,” Seawell said. “It’s fundamental. Without them, we couldn’t be here.”

In 2009, about 1,000 GEO members went on strike and successfully won tuition waivers in their contracts. Members claim the University violated that contract by reducing tuition waivers for graduate employees within the College of Fine and Applied Arts.

“Providing tuition waivers and other forms of financial assistance to graduate students has been a long-standing practice and will continue in the future, though over the years there have been occasional adjustments concerning the details of tuition waivers on a department-by-department basis,” campus spokesperson Robin Kaler said in an email two weeks ago.

The GEO is now moving forward with preliminary work action plans in case it becomes necessary, including taking a formal strike authorization vote Monday.

Seawell said GEO members have three days to vote, and the votes will be counted next Friday.

If the vote passes, a strike committee will be organized within the GEO.

This committee will authorize a strike only if necessary, as mediation will continue alongside these plans.

“I’m hoping we don’t have to go on strike this year because it’s better to get things done in the bargaining room,” GEO member Zack Poppel said. “By coming out here today we’re showing each other and we’re trying to show the community that not only are we willing but we are capable of doing what’s necessary to get a fair contract.”

This sentiment is mirrored across the GEO, Seawell said.

“We want to settle this in the bargaining room,” she said. “We want to stay in the classroom.”

Seawell also said the administration needs to talk with the GEO seriously about tuition waivers, wages and health care rather than “a lot of conversation about procedure,” something she’s seen in the bargaining room recently.

Campbell said all the GEO wants is to have its future secured.

“We want the University to do what’s right and bargain all forms of compensation and do what the state is expecting of them: to listen to the ruling of the labor board and listen to the reasonable demands made by the people that make this University work,” Poppel said.

Federal mediation begins Friday from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. at the Levis Faculty Center.

Tyler can be reached at [email protected].