After nearly four weeks on strike, graduate student workers at Oregon State University ratified a new contract that gives teaching and research assistants an immediate 13% raise.
Coalition of Graduate Employees (CGE) members returned to classes and research labs on Tuesday, Dec. 10, after 93% voted to ratify the agreement.
“The new contract is most certainly a compromise,” CGE President Austin Bosgraaf said. The contract doesn’t fully address the high cost of living in Corvallis, but it does provide immediate wage increases, annual raises for workers who continue in their positions for multiple years, and a shorter contract term than OSU had earlier insisted on, Bosgraaf said.
CGE, also known as American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local 6069, represents around 1,800 graduate teaching and research assistants at Oregon’s largest university. Around 1,000 of the represented workers are members.
The 13% raise brings the minimum wage to around $28.70 per hour, or $1,991 per month for a worker hired for 16 hours per week. The university will also continue to cover the student workers’ tuition as they work toward a master’s or doctoral degree.
In final offers submitted to the state mediator before the strike, CGE sought a 50% raise to the minimum, while OSU offered 8%. CGE had also proposed 4% annual raises for returning workers. OSU’s offer was raises averaging 2.4% per year over the contract term. The new contract gives varying raises to returning workers, averaging 2.65% per year.
In the past, CGE was able to renegotiate salaries and other terms every two years, under four-year contracts with partial reopeners at the two-year mark. But in negotiations, OSU sought a six-year contract with no partial reopener.
“We saw this as a fundamental weakening of our ability to negotiate,” Bosgraaf said. “This wasn’t just the university saying no to something we asked for. This was the university trying to take something from us.”
Bosgraaf said the contract duration was an important issue because graduate students are often only at the university for a few years. A six-year contract would mean many CGE members would graduate without ever getting to weigh in on the contract. A long duration would also weaken the CGE’s bargaining team because very few people would be around long enough to participate in one round of negotiations and return six years later for the next round, Bosgraaf said.
The new contract lasts three years, with no partial reopener.
The contract also extends the time limit for filing grievances and increases the amount that OSU must put into a hardship fund to $150,000 annually to assist CGE members and other graduate students who are experiencing financial hardships.
During the strike, university administrators asked graduate workers to fill out a daily form reporting their hours worked or struck, but most striking workers weren’t filling out the form, Bosgraaf said.
Under a letter of agreement approved along with the contract, the new raises will be retroactive to Sept. 16. In exchange, the union agreed to assist OSU in getting workers to accurately report their hours worked during the strike — which would be zero for workers who participated in the strike.
