U-M and the Graduate Employee Organization have reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year contract.
Agreement was reached March 19 at the end of a 12-hour bargaining session that began the day before, the last day of a two-week contract extension. GEO represents about 1,800 graduate student instructors and graduate student staff assistants on the three U-M campuses.
Ronald Dick, associate director of academic human resources, says the tentative agreement was consistent with the university’s long-term personnel goals and also forged a new level of cooperation between the university and GEO.
“With this agreement we were able to work together to pave the way for timely and effective accommodations for graduate students with disabilities in need of accommodations to fulfill their responsibilities as graduate student instructors or graduate student staff assistants,” Dick says.
The university and GEO also agreed on increases in the minimum pay rate of 2.5 percent, 3 percent and 3 percent during the three-year agreement.
Complete details of the agreement will be released after the GEO conducts a ratification vote. That vote is expected to be scheduled in the coming weeks.
The current GEO contract expired March 1, but was extended by mutual agreement to March 18.
