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Members of the Graduate Employees' Organization at the University of Michigan crowd the hallway of the Fleming Administrative Building during a sit-in to draw attention to its ongoing contract negotiations with the university on Tuesday, March 28. Martin Slagter l The Ann Arbor News

ANN ARBOR, MI - Members of the Graduate Employees' Organization at the University of Michigan are making it clear they want to see better progress in contract negotiations with administration by holding a sit-in Tuesday, March 28, at the Fleming Administrative Building.

The sit in was meant to catch the attention of the university, GEO member and UM graduate student Rachel Miller said, claiming four months of negotiations have not yielded satisfactory progress.

"We are here today in order to make it clear to the university that the university works because we do," said Miller, a labor historian in UM's Department of American Culture. "Graduate students currently provide 23 percent of all contact hours in the university. We're a huge part of the teaching of this institution and many of us are really dedicated to that."

Since December, the union and the university have been unable to reach consensus on issues like wage increases, work hours and a cap on health insurance copayments.

The union, which represents around 1,800 graduate student instructors and graduate student assistants at UM, is looking for wage increases of 5.5 percent in the first two years of a new deal and a 6 percent increase in the third year, President John Ware said, to keep up with cost of living increases in Ann Arbor.

Union members have received 2 percent pay increases annually over the last four years of their current contract, which expires at the end of April.

"We made some progress early on, but we're pretty frustrated with the way the university is approaching the negotiations," Ware said. "They don't seem to be approaching it in the spirit of dialogue or problem solving.

"As of last week they are actually refusing to make any counter offer at all," he added. "That's why we are out here trying to get their attention and unstick the bargaining process."

UM Spokesperson Kim Broekhuizen said the university's current proposal for a new three-year deal include wage increases each year, GradCare health coverage for the student and family with no contribution to the monthly premiums, increased leave time for parental accommodation, increased leave time for bereavement and increased protections for international graduate student instructors to comply with work restrictions required to maintain their visa status.

"Negotiations started in November, talks continue and we are hopeful about having a new contract in place soon," Broekhuizen said in an email.

In a March 22 Facebook post, the Graduate Employees Organization 3550 outlined progress of the negotiations, claiming the university's bargaining team brought a state-appointed mediator in to negotiations, claiming their presence was necessary to speed up the bargaining process.

The post also claimed UM's human resources department has "begun threatening take-backs at various sessions, even on things on which we've already come to a compromise," while suggesting that if GEO wanted to ask for hour caps, it will "also need to think of ourselves as hourly workers."

Ware said the union and the university remain far apart on the protections for international graduate student instructors, whose visa statuses are vulnerable if they work more than 20 hours a week while they attend school.

"The way our work is set up, if you have a half time job, it's half time on average," Ware said. "So there will be some heavy weeks where there are more than 20 hours and lighter weeks where it's less than 20 hours. That really puts those people in danger if they are sometimes required to work in violation of their visas. We're really looking for that work to be capped at 20 hours."

Jelani McGadney, a legislative aid for Rep. Yousef Rabhi, D-Ann Arbor, was one of the dozens of supporters for GEO to attend the sit-in.

He believes health care costs need to be capped for GSIs, while wage increases should reflect the cost of living in Ann Arbor.

"The cost of living in Ann Arbor has risen 6 percent since last year," he said. "We want to make sure their compensation reflects the work that they do and the cost of living."