From 12-1 p.m. on May 20, around 59 students, classified staff and faculty gathered in front of Johnson Hall from the Service Employees International Union, Graduate Teaching Fellowship Federation, United Academics and Student Action Labor Project participated in a rally to celebrate a year’s work of labor between the groups, and to look forward to the bargaining process to continue over the summer concerning raising the contracts of the SEIU and the UA.
The UA, the faculty union, were offered a 0 percent increase over the 2015-2016 year, and a 1 percent increase for the 2016-2017 year.  The SEIU, the classified staff union, were offered a 0.5 percent increase every six months.
“We want to communicate the idea that you can’t really ‘divide and conquer’ with the union” said UA bargaining member, Regina Psaki,”We know that teaching and research is in the core mission of the institution, and you have to support all employment groups in order to have an excellent university.”
The president of the GTFF, Shawna Meechan, was also present.
“We were here to show our support, they were there for us when we were on strike earlier this year,” said Meechan. “We just wanted to let them know that we support them, and we are going to stick through it with them until the end.”