Here’s the latest from our 8/12 bargaining session:
Our proposals: Appointments, Non-discrimination, Job Posting, Union Rights, Recognition, Severability
Admin’s proposals: Leaves and Paid Time Off, Intellectual Property, Graduate Student Association (unchanged from their previous proposal), Student Status (unchanged from their previous proposal), Assistantships (unchanged from their previous proposal), Appointments
- If you have specific questions about any of the proposals, please reply to this email!
- These and all previous proposals are on our bargaining homepage
Here are the general take-aways from this bargaining session:
In the past few sessions we have proposed a number of articles covering a large part of the rights and protections that we want as graduate workers in our union contract. This session we focused on making progress on some of the backbone articles for our contract (Appointments, Non-discrimination, and Union Rights) as well as resolving some of the standard pieces of a union contract (Job Posting, Recognition, and Severability). Guarantees of 12 month appointments, reasonable expectations of continued employment, strong protections against discrimination, harassment, and bullying, and union rights that allow us to fully enforce all contract provisions are all important to the strong union contract we deserve.
For their part, SLU’s administration team made disappointing proposals in three areas:
- SLU refuses to guarantee any minimum appointment contract length, much less guaranteeing 12 month contracts, to any graduate workers. They promised graduate workers for years before we started negotiations that they would provide at least 10 month and 12 month minimum appointments (for masters and doctoral students, respectively). Their backtracking is extremely disappointing.
- SLU refuses to agree to our proposed membership structure, which would simply have all grad workers support the union and the contract through dues or fees because all graduate workers would be guaranteed the benefits of the union contract. All other unionized workers at SLU have this. The admin is instead insisting that those who do not wish to pay can be freeloaders and still benefit from the union. This is fundamentally unfair to graduate workers, and we want the fair structure that other unionized workers at SLU enjoy.
- The SLU admin’s Leaves and Paid Time Off proposal, in addition to not having a clear section for medical/health related leave, only proposed half a day off per month of appointment contract for vacation, personal illness, etc. This would mean at most graduate workers would only get six days off for the entire calendar year. This is clearly inadequate.
SLU’s proposal about the GSA is also problematic. SLU has made a proposal to allow them to discuss workplace issues with the GSA, allowing them to circumvent the union on issues that we should bargain over. They are trying to weaken our union and cause a divide through the union and GSA, something that we see as totally inappropriate. GSA serves a critical role in promoting graduate student community and addressing other student issues, and we expect that GSA will continue in that role. However, an overwhelming majority of graduate workers joined together to form our union because we know that the union is how we will address our work-related concerns.
How can you help win a great first union contract for SLU Graduate Workers?
- Sign on to publicly support our Initial Bargaining Demands to show that we are united behind making the improvements that SLU graduate workers need
- Join grad workers new and incoming at our first Union Social of the fall semester! On Friday, 08/22/2025 at 5:30pm we’ll be meeting in Davis Shaughnessy Hall 374 (in the business school) for a short presentation about what it means to be in a grad worker union. This is a great opportunity to get more information, eat some snacks, and meet new people!
- Join our organizing committee! We meet weekly on Tuesdays at 5:30pm, reply to this email for the zoom/location details.
Our next bargaining sessions: August 25th and 28th!
In Solidarity,
Celia McGhiey, on behalf of the GWSLUU Bargaining Committee
Ángel Flores
Carly Koppe
Celia McGhiey
Eileen Schaub
Ryan Powers