Illinois Grad Employees Win Key Contract Demand, Return to Jobs

by Mike Hall, Nov 18, 2009

More than 1,100 graduate student employees at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) won protection of their tuition waivers and other key improvements in a tentative deal reached with the university last night following a two-day strike.

The Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO/UIUC), an AFT affiliate, says in a statement the three-year agreement secures the “four pillars” of the union’s contract demands and “represents a major victory for labor in the state of Illinois and the United States.”

Graduate student Sarah Hennebohl told the Daily Illini, the school newspaper:

Without a tuition waiver, I can’t pay for anything. I can’t even apply for a credit card. I don’t want to have to discontinue my education.

In addition to protecting tuition waivers for the university’s teaching assistants and graduate assistants, the new contract includes an additional two weeks of unpaid parental leave, increases the university’s contribution to health care premiums and provides a 10 percent increase in the minimum salary over the next three years.

The graduate employees—who teach nearly a quarter of the undergraduate classes at UIUC—began their strike Monday after months of unsuccessful negotiations, while the university refused to include the tuition waiver protections in the collective bargaining agreement. They had been working without a contract since August.

In a letter of support Monday, AFT President Randi Weingarten praised the graduate employees for taking action “that will result in better working conditions for you and that will in turn ensure a high-quality education for the students you help to educate.”

You are not only standing for yourselves, but you are standing up for thousands of graduate employees around the nation who may one day find themselves in a similar situation. The AFT has long held that universities should provide tuition waivers as a condition of employment for graduate employees.

A vote on the new contract will be held later this month.

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