Administration threatens GEO over call for safety, GEO planning a response

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Monday, February 7th, 2021

Contacts:

Chelsea Birchmier
GEO Member
chelseabirchmier@gmail.com

Adam Farcus
GEO Member 
adamfarcus@gmail.com

Lesley Owens
GEO Co-President
cc@uigeo.org 

Owen MacDonald, Angela Ting
Communications Officers
commcomm@uigeo.org

Administration threatens GEO over calls for safety, GEO planning a response. 

Champaign-Urbana, IL - Last Wednesday, February 2, 2022, Robb B. Craddock, a representative of university administration and the Senior Director of Labor and Employee Relations, sent GEO a letter in response to our Online Work Action that was scheduled for February 2-4th. Craddock threatened to discipline graduate workers who shifted their modality of instruction online, despite previous messaging granting instructors the authority to move classes online for up to a week due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 

This has already had disastrous consequences, with some GEO members like Drew Weiner making the difficult decision to resign instead of conducting in-person classes against the democratic will of the instructors and students. Weiner was forced to delete a line about Covid safety from the course syllabus prior to the semester beginning, and the university’s response only got worse from there. Weiner polled students the day before in person instruction would resume and 90% of them decided that they would like to go online for now.  “"I believe my department trusted me as an instructor, and I believe they were sympathetic to my and my former students’ preference to remain online, but that administrative policy prevented them from giving me permission to make the changes that would have kept us safer,” Weiner said. “Rather than overruling my and my students’ preference to remain online and put them and me at risk of life-threatening illness, I resigned."

As announced to members on Friday, UIUC administration cares so little about worker safety that they are threatening to take legal action against the GEO and are citing a violation of the no strike clause in our contract. GEO and legal counsel maintain the legality of an online action is sound because we are not withholding our labor, but rather changing its modality.

With the recent snow storm, the administration already showed that it is possible to allow flexibility in modality in response to safety concerns. “In less than 24 hours the University administration decided to move classes online to protect the safety and integrity of Campus workers, students, and faculty during this snowstorm. Why hasn’t the University acted with the same level of urgency with our demands? Isn’t over 5,000 cases of COVID-19 in the month of January alone enough for the University administration to respect worker choice from Graduate Students?” asked GEO Co-President, Lesley Owens. If the administration can allow for flexibility in modality for severe weather, why not for a deadly pandemic? 

It is unacceptable to hear that the administration is more than willing to invest time and money to stop GEO from keeping graduate workers safe and healthy during a pandemic but refuses to invest in the most basic of necessities for safe learning, such as N95 and KN95 masks. It is shameful for a public institution committed to quality higher education to intimidate graduate workers who are only looking out for the safety of themselves, their coworkers, their students, and their community. 

GEO will continue to use our union power to discuss the implications of the administration's letter and assess our legal options. In the meantime, GEO is asking members to fill out this form to report unsafe COVID-19 working conditions for the Grievance Committee to review. Workers who have experienced any discipline or retaliation for moving classes online or offering a hybrid option are encouraged to contact the Grievance Committee at grievance@uigeo.org. Additionally, GEO is reactivating the Work Action Group (WAG) in order to collectively articulate our agitation strategy and meet our demands as we begin full contract bargaining. 

“In these situations, the need for GEO is clear; collective action may be the only way to effectively push back against such hazardous policies, whose real consequences may not otherwise be felt by the policymakers," said Weiner. GEO demands the University of Illinois to invest the same level of urgency shown during this week’s snowstorm to the union’s demands around COVID-19 safety. After two years of negotiations with the University administration, the institution has failed to meet several claims including significant mask distribution to graduate workers, worker choice, more testing sites, and an effective COVID-19 exposure notification system. When we fight, we win!

The Graduate Employees’ Organization, AFT/IFT Local 6300, AFL-CIO, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, represents approximately 2,700 Teaching and Graduate Assistants on the UIUC Campus. In November 2009 and in February 2018, over 1,000 GEO members and allies participated in a strike to secure a fair contract and a more accessible UIUC campus. With an active presence in the community, the GEO continues to work for high-quality and accessible public education in Illinois.

For more information, please contact geo@uigeo.org. More information can also be found on GEO’s website at www.uiucgeo.org.

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