Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation Local 3544 began contract negotiations Thursday with the University administration in the hopes of securing higher wages and better benefits for the University’s 1,200 GTFs.
The union’s current contract expires March 31, and according to GTFF President Ashley Overbeck, negotiations will probably continue at least until early March.
The GTFF, which is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, estimates nearly 30 percent of total academic instructional time at the University is provided by GTFs. GTFs also provide research and administrative assistance for many professors and programs on campus, and Overbeck said she expects negotiations to go well.
“(The negotiating process) is adversarial by nature,” she said, “But we feel like the administration is coming to the table ready to work with us.”
The average take-home wage for first year graduate teaching fellows was $7,315.20 for nine months in 2000-01. According to the GTFF, that number is only 62 percent of the average pay at comparative universities.
However, Richard Linton, vice president for research and graduate studies, who is handling the negotiations for the University, said that the issue was more complicated than simply raising the minimum wage for GTFs.
“Many departments already pay more than the minimum,” he said. “With money that comes in for research, some departments are in a position where they can do that. My basic message (in the negotiations) is that this is a cooperative effort.”
Brian Wolf, lead negotiator for the GTFF, said the University would have to consider a significant wage increase if it wanted to make up the ground lost in recent years. Since 1983, real wage salaries for GTFs have declined by 13 percent, he said.
“There’s been no talk of a minimum or strike, per se, but we do want something more than inflation,” Wolf said.
But administrators could be faced with a difficult choice during the negotiation process. With a predicted state budget shortfall of $290 million, administrators at all of Oregon’s state-funded universities are being forced to look at their operating costs, and Overbeck said that the GTFF is concerned about what that means for GTF salaries.
However, state Sen. Tony Corcoran, D-Cottage Grove, who spoke at a GTFF press conference Thursday, threw his support behind the union’s request for higher pay.
“Public universities in Oregon would be cutting their own throats to look at any reduction of GTFs,” Corcoran said. “We will be watching in Salem as we go through these budget cuts. We’ll see who is taken care of and who is not.”
The GTFF is also seeking inclusion of “training grant” graduate employees in collective bargaining agreements and a stronger anti-harassment policy in its new contract.