Minutes
November 1st, 2006
Letters in the IDS
Vanessa's got published last week, so she's out for 6 weeks.
Ursula's got published two weeks ago; this was the revised version of Sara's letter
Letter from a chair for financing purposes
George doesn't want to show that the English dept. supports the geo, so getting from Purnima in cultural studies.
Steward's mtg. part
Goal has changed from dental care to health care which was dramatically decreased in terms of coverage and increased in terms of how much we
pay for it. We have had a response from Theobald about the health care issue, and it is very persuasive in terms of the context. We all know that
IU has some budget problems, but it is still a matter of how resources are distributed. This is an issue we have to care about and something about
which we have a chance of having an effect on the current state of affairs.
For the stewards, the goals are pretty similar as they were before. Basically to spread awareness, get more members, etc. That way we can get more people in our database so they can be informed about actions and meetings. Of course, that doesn't always work, so we need to also try and help people get motivated to become active. One of the best ways is to talk to them in person word of mouth is powerful. Emails are easily ignored and are not always effective.
Need to keep in mind the structure of each individual dept. Prudence, the Math steward mentioned that many of the students are international and are afraid of govt problems. Yes, having the same problem in physics. Problem is they don't want their name on a list to incriminate them. So perhaps be able to post flyers and get involved in actions but not be on a list.
Also we need to know more about international student affairs, so it would also be useful to get information through the stewards talk to them. One thing that is reported is about the visa help that the university claims it offers, but it is actually not particularly helpful.
Anthropology steward: issues raised in her dept: that birth control is not covered by the health plan. Au contraire. but perhaps we don't have enough information, like was it denied coverage or was this just assumed because of strange wording in the plan? We have asked her to gather more information or get the person to email us directly.
Matching 401k retirement issues. unrealistic although a nice idea in theory.
Info from the group
Open-source union now no more traditional unionization which means affiliating with an international union, having a vote and being formally recognized. That would be
difficult because there is no automatic recognition in the state of Indiana. We were hoping to convince them to recognize us since they do recognize
two other unions. But there were real problems: 1. need real support from a union need a structure, funds, etc. No international wanted us because they don't want to put money and time into a very hard sale. They saw it as a
private affair. There was some support from CWA on campus, but they were worried that if we pushed IU too much, then IU would not recognize anyone.
And they had no money anyway, but they'd give friendly faces.
So needed to go another route open-source unionization. It can have different forms; in one way is to a formal union state. But we no longer see that as our ultimate goal. We can accomplish a lot as an activist group. This is the third incarnation of a union at iu, but all have failed because they focused too much on the formal list/recognition. Instead, we can focus our attention on pestering the administration, hopefully eventually being able to negotiate. But the route to that is not with names and lists, but rather through agitation. We are open to comments and concerns about this new route. It is possible that eventually we'll be able to be a formal union, but right now is a really really tough time for unions. Just had a ruling against unions, so this structure is more flexible as a structure it's organizing 19th century style. The open-source model is a very participatory model, no big leaders at the top of it, rather a more egalitarian style. The negative side of it is that a union does give resources, money and time and now we don't have those resources. We will need participation from concerned parties we have to do it ourselves, so we really need some outreach.
What we're doing now
Flyer gives some details about what happened with Chickering this year. So to respond, we started a letter campaign and click-to-send campaign
to send letters to Theobald. Right now, have a link on the website so that we can flood Theobald's inbox. But now we've gotten a response from him
giving a breakdown of the budget problems this past year, and they're setting up a taskforce. But we need to modify the letter so that it takes him
into account perhaps set agenda for task force. But since we've gotten a response, we need to continue the pressure.
But the committee can't make the budget, but rather they can say how the money is used, but not how much money is given to any given issue. So we need to be able to negotiate the priorities in the larger budget, not just the money handed down from on high. We do need to recognize that we've gotten more money this year, but we need to know the context. And we are important enough that if the cost increases, those needs should be met.
Chickering raised premiums 57% last year. We need to develop a strategy about appropriation of funds. The increase in the budget was broken down for us, but Ursula mentions that even the increases in salary are class based. Interesting. But we still don't know much about the budget as a whole. While it would be tedious to have to go after the budget every damn year, knowing where the money comes from and goes to is a lot of power and a power we need to have.
We need to be able to ask and force an answer about how the negotiations even work. The decision about how much it will cost and how much money there is to give is handed down from the powers above. The committee only can figure out where to cut to make the two figures match. It's possible that this might be different in terms of negotiation this time around. Can we work this into our letter to Theobald? Perhaps acknowledging that the university was in a tough position this last time, but we need to make sure that the university is on our side, fighting for us rather than just accepting what the insurance company says.
We are not talking about extravagance, but basic health care. Need to call him on his tone too. This is about the health of grad students and ultimately benefits the university to have a healthy student population. Let's breakdown the grad student budget too. Here's how much we make, here's how much it costs to live, pay for insurance, etc. We'll solicit some info from real grad students to send. Renee will draft up the new letter in response. Stewards will try to get more support from the dept. and get this new click-to-send letter on the move.