Georgetown University’s COVID-19 plans and policies have profoundly impacted the graduate work experience. Throughout the summer, we made sure that the administration heard graduate workers’ concerns both through public forums and in bargaining meetings. At present, they have failed to adequately address our concerns, and they have reneged on their contractual commitments to our union by denying our union right to bargain.
Thursday morning we met with representatives of the administration in an attempt to resolve our fundamental dispute over our union right to bargain a COVID-19 agreement, a formal document that would be separate and distinct from our contract. At this meeting, the administration continued to insist they are not obligated to bargain with GAGE on these issues. We are beginning preparations to take this disagreement to a third-party arbitrator. We will seek to reaffirm that the administration is obligated to bargain with GAGE on the impact of the administration’s COVID-19 reopening policies on graduate work at Georgetown.
Here we’d like to recap what we are fighting for in a COVID-19 agreement and explain what it means to go to arbitration. We ask that you sign our open letter to show support for our arbitration case and impact bargaining campaign.
COVID-19 Impact Bargaining
GAGE initiated the process of impact bargaining in mid-July to seek resolution with the administration over COVID-19 policies that have caused graduate workers at Georgetown intense amounts of frustration, fear, and uncertainty. Impact bargaining is separate from our contract and would set policies for the duration for pandemic, whether it ends in time for the Spring 2021 semester or lasts later into 2021 (or beyond). Impact bargaining leads to binding agreements such as a Letter of Agreement, Memorandum of Understanding, Side Agreement, or a combination of these. Unions regularly negotiate such agreements in response to new developments like the COVID-19 pandemic, as shown by the side letters negotiated by the graduate union at Brown University, and the memorandum of understanding the faculty union won at the University of Florida. The graduate union at New York University is currently impact bargaining and the graduate workers of the University of Michigan just completed an 8-day strike over their administration’s unwillingness to meet their bargaining demands for a fair and just response to the pandemic.
The administration must bargain with GAGE to ensure COVID-19 policies protect rather than harm graduate workers. Our proposals sought to:
Guarantee remote work for all graduate workers regardless of their location;
Provide sick leave to graduate workers--especially those in hourly positions--who contract COVID-19;
Secure the University’s commitment to cover the cost of public health protections, including COVID-19 testing, for graduate workers on campus; and
Protect the legal rights of graduate workers under the administration’s Community Compact.
When we sent our demand for impact bargaining, we expected a swift process that would yield a formal agreement to improve upon current policies that we know fail to address graduate workers’ needs. We expected that, in line with the values espoused in Georgetown’s Just Employment Policy, the administration would want to bargain in good faith to achieve consensus on an agreement that would protect the health and safety of graduate workers. Instead, the administration denied our right to bargain.
We have to ask ourselves: if the administration believes that GAGE doesn’t have the right to bargain over the impacts from changes due to an unprecedented global crisis, when would they ever believe that we have the right to do so? We cannot abide cynical and disingenuous attacks by the administration on our right to collectively push for safe and appropriate working conditions.
Arbitration
Arbitration is our recourse for disputes on which we cannot come to a resolution with the Administration. GAGE’s team is working with experts and lawyers at the American Federation of Teachers, our national union, to document the administration’s attempts to play fast and loose with our right to bargain collectively. If the arbitrator rules in our favor, then the administration will have to bargain with us in an effort to reach an agreement. We expect to win our case. But, there’s no guarantee. A lot makes the results of arbitration uncertain, including the anti-labor policies of the Trump-appointed National Labor Relations Board. If the arbitrator rules in the administration’s favor, that only means that we are exactly where we are now: relying on our collective power to face down an administration that, despite its much-touted commitment to workers’ rights, is willing to rely on the anti-labor policies of the Trump administration.
Since mid-July, we’ve organized to pressure the administration to respect our collective power and address our demands. Without a way to guarantee the accountability that we’ve fought for, the administration’s policies will continue to fail graduate workers when they should be protecting our health and livelihoods.
We’re confident about our case at arbitration, but we also know that whatever happens, our organizing is what will determine the administration’s willingness to negotiate a COVID-19 agreement with us.
We recognize that you may have questions about our proposals, our interactions with the administration since July, or how the arbitration process works for Unions like GAGE. You can refer to our Impact Bargaining FAQ and you are welcome to contact us.
In solidarity,
Jewel Tomasula, President, and Daniel Solomon, Vice President
