GEO belongs to its members.

In order to transform GEO into a fighting union, we all need to feel invested into that struggle. With the recent Janus Supreme Court Decision in 2018, federal attacks on labor unions, and the lack of institutional memory within graduate organizing, we feel estranged from being able to truly participate in our union.

To mobilize our membership and rebuild confidence in our union, we believe that the first step is to reinvest our dues back into our membership. The vast majority of our budget remains unspent throughout the year. Our union is not just a subscription that graduate students pay into, dues are supposed to provide the resources necessary for our union to serve our organizing needs. Our slate promises to invest dues into organizing training institutes, socials in departments across campus, mutual aid networks for precarious workers, and more.

Furthermore, we must rebuild the stewards network and provide them the training necessary to internally organize their departments. While we are allotted over 100 stewards, only 37 seats are currently filled. Stewards are the lifeblood of our union – They are the most effective way to monitor possible grievances, receive feedback and involve members about union activities, and improve turnout at organizing events. Our slate seeks to invest more of our resources into training and identifying stewards so they are capable of conducting regular walkthroughs, participate in membership drives, assist with grievances, and represent their department’s interests at larger general membership meetings.

In addition to building out these networks, our slate also believes in implementing structure tests to analyze rank-and-file participation in union activities like button campaigns, petitions, rallies, and more. These structure tests are essential to gauge the effectiveness of our outreach efforts and to resiliently build out our organizing efforts as a collective.

If we want to meet UMass management with strength about issues that impact all of us as graduate workers, we need to be stronger together.