As UO’s graduate employee union GTFF 3544 enters its upcoming bargaining cycle, concerns over the health insurance of GEs are sure to be a foremost concern.
During the fall of 2019, GTFF gave a ten-day notice of a strike during its bargaining process with the university calling for health insurance and salary increases.
GTFF president-elect Kisa Clark said the union is going into this bargaining cycle knowing that their health insurance is something the university will come after.
“Our position is, that is something that we’re willing to use our legal right to strike over if needed,” Clark said.
However, she said going into a bargaining cycle with the intentions of striking is not good faith bargaining.
“Our insurance is so much better than what the University Health Center would provide,” she said.
Current GTFF president Mel Keller said the University of Oregon argued that they couldn’t raise GTFF’s wages without cutting their health insurance back in 2019.
“The university tried to make us relinquish valuable parts of our health insurance,” Keller said.
Keller said the credible strike in fall of 2019 was how GTFF were able to maintain their health insurance at their current levels.
GTFF controls their own health insurance, with GEs having control over their benefits and plan, Keller said. With the university in control of other graduate unions’ health insurance, Keller said that they don’t have the autonomy to decide benefit levels, premiums and coverage limits.
“We think this autonomy is incredibly important and shows our members why the union is so crucial,” she said.
Using their collective power when bargaining for their contract, GTFF is able to have UO pay for 95% of their insurance with GEs paying the remaining 5% GTFF co-treasurer Heather Terral said.
“They wanted to take the healthcare benefits away completely,” Terral said. “In theory we could have bought the insurance for members, but no way would members be able to pay the 95%.”
Terral said she has had a lot of conversations with GTFF members when making crucial financial decisions.
“Do we want to cut benefits? Do we want to increase deductibles? What’s the most equitable thing for us to do,” she said.
Terral said they’re able to solicit this feedback at events like GTFF’s general membership meeting.
Clark said GTFF has already held their first big bargaining meeting. “We really have to start doing some work now and this summer to talk to our members to figure out what their needs are,” she said.
In addition to their own bargaining team, Clark said there will also be a contract action team that will handle social media campaigns and other events.
As part of the previous contract action team, Clark said they did a “blackout” where GEs covered their office doors with black paper. She said the purpose was to highlight how many office spaces on campus would be empty if there were a potential strike.
Currently, Clark said GTFF is in the process of letting members know about the upcoming bargaining cycle and to attend sessions when the process of bargaining begins.
She said it will not only help members become familiar with the process, but it will also show the bargaining team support for the members.
“That also lets the university know how many folks are paying attention,” Clark said.
