The University of Michigan Graduate Employees’ Organization called a strike Monday night and plans to walk out of classrooms Wednesday morning. The union voted to authorize a strike last week, with 95% in favor.
Negotiations for a new three-year contract between the University and GEO have been going on for five months and the current agreement will remain in effect until May 1. The union represents roughly 2,300 graduate student instructors and graduate student staff assistants.
A strike would violate both GEO's current contract, which prohibits interference with the operations of the university, and Michigan law, according to University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald.
"Beyond any legal considerations is an ethical one: if collective bargaining is to retain its value, all parties must honor the terms of the contract they signed," Fitzgerald said in an email. "We urge GEO to reconsider breaching the agreement we reached through good faith collective bargaining."
The University would ask a court to order strikers back to work for breaching their contract, stop the deduction of union dues, file unfair labor practice charges and not pay striking GEO members for the time they don't work, they said in an update on March 24.
Walking out of the classroom is not a decision that GEO takes lightly but the union claims that the University has failed to provide serious, good-faith counter-offers to their well-researched proposals at the bargaining table. GEO recently filed unfair labor...
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