cgeadmin

In case you hadn’t heard, this was a great week for graduate unionization, both at Penn State and around the country. Graduate employees here showcased their labor on Wednesday during a work-in at Kern Building and yesterday graduate employees at the University of Chicago scored a major victory when they overwhelmingly voted in favor of a union.

This win is particularly sweet in the wake of  University of Chicago administrators’ attempts to stall the vote by appealing to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).However, in the face of many of the same tactics that Penn State administrators have used against graduate workers in addition to the NLRB appeal, graduate labor won.

The status quo will not always be the status quo, and University of Chicago graduate employees made that fact emphatically clear this week. They are taking a stand for their rights, regardless of the union-busting tactics administrators try. 

CGE congratulates the graduate employees at the University of Chicago, and especially their union organization, Graduate Students United (GSU). We hope administrators stop emailing you soon so that you can get back to celebrating.

---

In solidarity, the Coalition of Graduate Employees

Penn State administration’s opposition to graduate unionization is crystal clear. However, what might not be clear is why university administration is willing to spend upwards of $500,000 to fight our unionization campaign. While one answer is that spending this amount of money in the short-term saves the administration money and negotiation efforts in the long-term, another reason for their attempts to derail graduate unionization is that the winds may be changing in their favor at the national level.

The big change that has already happened involves the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Since taking office in January, President Trump has filled two vacancies on the NLRB with Republicans Marvin Kaplan (the chief counsel of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission) and William Emmanuel (a corporate lawyer). Filling these vacancies gives conservatives control of the NLRB and is particularly troubling for unions given the Supreme Court’s announcement in late September to take on a case regarding fair-share fees in public sector unions.

This case, Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council, will decide whether or not fair-share fees are constitutional. These fees are paid by non-union members in the public sector to help cover the costs of their workplace union’s collective bargaining activities. Because the fees are not put toward expressing political speech, but instead dedicated to negotiations with employers, something even non-union members benefit from, the Supreme Court ruled in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education (1977) that such fees are constitutional. However, Mark Janus, the individual bringing the current suit, is challenging that ruling.

The Supreme Court heard a similar case last year in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association and appeared to be ready to rule that fair-share fees were unconstitutional, which would have significantly reduced the amount of funds available to public sector unions for collective bargaining purposes. The death of Justice Antonin Scalia on March 13, 2016, resulted in a deadlocked decision, but now with Justice Neil Gorsuch filling Scalia’s seat, the Supreme Court is poised to more or less return to Friedrichs in the Janus case and, if Gorsuch votes as expected, it’s likely that fair-share fees will be ruled unconstitutional in the next year.

While Penn State is not a private university and is, therefore, not fully subject to the changing nature of the NLRB, Supreme Court, and executive administration, it also isn’t completely isolated from the effects of these changes. With potential cuts to federal funding and student aid for universities coming in the next year along with the lingering effects of Great Recession-era state funding cuts and rising tuition, Penn State, along with other universities, is uncertain about its future funding, as illustrated by President Eric Barron’s September 26, 2017, email imploring “every Pennsylvania resident in our Penn State community to contact their state legislator to encourage them to finish the state budget and fund Penn State.”

Like many other universities, both public and private, Penn State is concerned about its future funding and like many other universities, including Columbia, Yale, and Harvard, it’s using stalling tactics and well-worn arguments in the hope that a changing administration, Supreme Court, and NLRB can help them. Concerns about a university’s future are valid, but stalling graduate unionization and hoping for an intervention from the federal government is not. Graduate employees at Penn State and elsewhere aren’t about taking their universities to the cleaners, but instead advocating for an underappreciated and overworked employee base. Unions improve universities and it’s up to us to fight to prove this supposedly controversial fact because instead of looking at us, Penn State’s administration is looking to Trump for help.

---

In solidarity, the Coalition of Graduate Employees

If you’ve ever been part of a group with a budget, you may have heard the term “participatory budgeting,” but what exactly is it? Participatory budgeting (PB) involves democratizing the fiscal decision-making process of institutions and organizations like unions. A union gives workers a voice in our workplace; PB empowers rank and file members to identify which needs our union should address. Any CGE member can propose initiatives that benefit our organization, and then work alongside our organizing committee to develop these proposals into substantive programs. Programs are voted upon before receiving funding, ensuring all members have a hand in how we spend our money and where we take our organization.

You might be asking yourself, “how does PB benefit me?” CGE members are united around our shared vision of making Penn State an institution where we can be proud to work. As such, we are active in many graduate organizations across campus. PB allows us to harness our membership’s social circles to address graduate employees with  particular interests. For example, are you in a graduate organization where several graduate employees have families and are invested in better childcare? We want to give you the resources to host events catered to these graduate communities. Personalizing outreach and dealing with the issues small graduate communities care about improves the quality of life for all.

Likewise PB is essential for uplifting marginalized communities. International students, women, LGBTQ+ students and students of color are among the most vulnerable graduate employees, facing unique challenges in our workplaces that go unaddressed by Penn State. Are women within your department concerned with rampant cases of sexual harassment  and the imminent rollback of Title IX protections? PB allows CGE members from these communities to voice their needs, tackling these issues with the full weight of our resources and membership behind them. We are fighting for a better workplace for all graduate employees. An injury to one is an injury to all.

A union relies first and foremost on a sense of solidarity between workers. As we implement PB, we strengthen the bonds between our communities of graduate employees. However, the success of PB depends on your involvement. We encourage you reflect on the graduate communities you are a part of, and on the concerns they voice that have gone unheard. Envision how we can address these concerns and uplift these communities. All ideas are welcome and we are eager to help you develop them into meaningful initiatives. Just because the university is inhibiting our unionization efforts doesn’t mean we stop trying to improve the lives of graduate employees.

---

In Solidarity, The Coalition of Graduate Employees
 

A lot has been happening lately in relation to graduate unionization at Penn State, and CGE is here to answer a few of your questions. Whether you’re new to the organization or Penn State and wondering what unionization is about or an old hand who has secretly been wondering these things, we’ve got the answers to your questions about unionization!

Q: Aren’t unions for miners? 

A: No! Unions are for any group of employees that believe they can all do better by working together. This means that there have been unions across many different fields: nurses, MLB umpires, pilots, flight attendants, and engineers. Graduate unions have been active in the United States since the late 1960s when graduate employees at the University of Wisconsin, Madison started organizing. They won the first graduate union election in 1969, and had their contract in 1970. 

Q: I heard there was a hearing, do we have a union yet? Is there a vote? 

A: We just finished up a hearing in front of the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board (PLRB), but this hearing was not about whether or not we have a union. The hearing was to decide if we are employees or not. Penn State administrators argued that we are not employees, we argued that we are employees. Once the PLRB decides this we should get the chance to vote. Remember, we get to choose if we want a union or not. 

Q: What is a union contract? Do we have a contract now? 

A: Right now most graduate employees sign a contract once a year or once a semester. These contracts can change every time we sign it and we have little say about what goes into it. We want to change this so that we are actively involved in negotiating our contract. In addition, we want a contract that would cover multiple years so we can have more assurance about what to expect in the future. 

Q: Will I get forced out of my office/lab at 5 P.M. if we have a union?

A: No. The purpose of a union is to help us all do better. We would not be limited in the amount we decide to work. Conversely, if you are being required to work more than what you have agreed to you would be able to get help. Right now graduate employees who are being overworked have little recourse, and we want to change that. But we want to give graduate employees more options, not force them all to work from 9 to 5. 

 

Q: Will I have to pay more taxes? 

A: We’ve heard this from a lot of people. Penn State administrators have been claiming that unionized graduate employees will lose their exemptions from FICA taxes. This is not true. Temple University graduate employees are unionized and they ARE exempt from FICA.

Q: How does unionization and healthcare work?

A: This has been a concern for grad employees for a while, whether they experienced the debacle of five years ago, the one of this August, or both. Contrary to what the administration claims, graduate employees don’t currently have meaningful input because the administration doesn’t actually have to listen to us about things that we think are important, like mental healthcare. A union would give us an actual say in our healthcare plan and what’s included.

In short, unions are for graduate employees as well as miners and offer numerous benefits and protections to us. The administration made it clear during the PLRB hearing that they didn’t have our best interests at heart, but a graduate-employee-operated union certainly does, so when the time comes, vote yes!

Didn’t answer your question? Send us an email at cge.psu.media@gmail.com and we’ll be happy to answer it!
 

---

In solidarity, The Coalition of Graduate Employees

 

In the past week and a half, Penn State’s administration has insulted every aspect of graduate assistants’ work or, as they were so fond of calling it, our “activities.” For those of you who have been keeping up with CGE’s Twitter and Facebook, this will come as no surprise, but for readers still scratching their heads, let me explain:

On September 5, 2017, CGE, along with their Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) representatives, went toe-to-toe with Penn State’s administration and their representatives, Ballard Spahr, LLP, a high-powered and grievously expensive Philadelphia law firm, at a Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board (PLRB) hearing. This hearing will result in a ruling (likely sometime in December) on whether or not Penn State graduate assistants are employees. Given that the PLRB handed down a favorable ruling to Temple University in 2000 when the graduate assistants there were facing a similar challenge to unionization, we expect the PLRB to reaffirm that graduate assistants are, as we all know, workers employed by Penn State. However, when the hearing wrapped up on September 13th, it was clear that Penn State’s administration would say anything to deny that fact. 

PSEA and CGE called witnesses for the first two days of the hearing and argued graduate assistants’ labor qualified as work on the grounds that we provide an essential service to Penn State, are paid wages, receive healthcare benefits, pay taxes, and are processed through the same payroll system as other employees. What was Ballard Spahr’s reaction to our logical arguments? The assertion that they needed a break after each of our witnesses testified because they had to frantically Google search each witness and dig up dirt on them: aka their CVs. They then went on to imply that what we were doing wasn’t work if 1) we used what we did to get a future job 2) we enjoyed what we were doing.

Once CGE’s and PSEA’s two days were up and Ballard Spahr’s witnesses took the stand (in contrast to our mere two days, their testimony lasted FIVE), the offensive statements began flying at a rapidfire pace (see our Twitter feed for proof). There were small offences, such as using every word in the English language except for “work” to describe what graduate students do and suggesting that because our roles at the university are so complex that we can’t be classified as employees. 

However, then there were some big insults, including the claims that teaching does not constitute a service to the university and that TAs don’t lessen the workload of professors and, in fact, may increase their workload. Both claims consistently appeared throughout faculty members’ and administrators’ testimony. Essentially, according to those who testified, graduate assistants are a burden to Penn State rather than an asset; we do no work, bring in no money, and require expensive “financial support” (which we apparently do nothing in exchange for) from the university in order to get our degrees.

Over the course of the hearing, Penn State’s administrators, contrary to what they say, showed that they do not value graduate assistants or the labor we do. In fact, they downright insulted us by suggesting that during our time here we do nothing of value for the university, in spite of all the research and teaching we do.

Penn State’s administrators say they care, but what they are interested in is the university’s bottom line and they showed that they’re willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in the short term to keep the long-term status quo. This is why we need a union. If the administration does not value us and the work we do, then we cannot expect them to have our best interests at heart. Only we can make a difference because we know all the work we do and, unlike the administration, acknowledge that it is labor. A labor of love, perhaps, but still labor.

---

In Solidarity, The Coalition of Graduate Employees

On Thursday evening, PSU graduate workers received an email from Dean Vasilatos-Younken ‘updating’ them on the results of the legal challenge mounted by administration against its graduate employees. The email contained a number of untruths and misrepresentations, and grad employees deserve the truth. First, the Dean yet again attributed our unionization effort to the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA):

“I am contacting you to provide an update on the status of the Pennsylvania State Education Association’s (PSEA) effort to unionize graduate students at Penn State”

While we are affiliated with PSEA, we stood in court as the Coalition of Graduate Employees. It was graduate employees who began this effort and graduate employees who continue to lead it. Then, Dean Vasilatos-Younken mentioned some of the witnesses who testified in court:

“More than 20 witnesses, including more than a dozen faculty members from across Penn State’s colleges, testified”

Perhaps some were faculty members, but many were also graduate employees. We spoke about the realities of graduate labor, testifying that we love our work but often perform it for low pay, unreliable healthcare, and without a say in our working conditions. Many faculty members presumed to speak for us. Do not let the university silence our voices. Finally, the email referred to graduate unionization as

    “this unsettled area of Pennsylvania law.”

Let there be no confusion on this point: this area of the law is quite settled. In October of 2000, the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board ruled that Temple University’s graduate assistants are employees. Temple is a state-related institution, just like Penn State. The co-president of Temple’s union even testified on our behalf last week. Our teaching and research labor falls under the same laws, despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by administration to try to argue that we do is not work. This is an egregiously expensive attempt by administration to deliberately mislead their employees. We are teachers, researchers, and writers — administration cannot mislead us with these statements.

Your union is fighting for higher pay, better healthcare, and protection from harassment and abuse. Our teaching keeps this university running and our research is the foundation of its world-class graduate programs; we deserve to be treated with dignity. If you would like to help build a university that treats its employees honestly and respectfully, join us for our General Meeting next Thursday at 6 pm, and consider emailing gradinfo@psu.edu to let administration know what you think of their doublespeak.

---

In Solidarity, The Coalition of Graduate Employees

After September 13th, the Penn State administration’s challenge to graduate assistants’ employee status will hopefully come to an end. From September 5th through September 13th, the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board (PLRB) will be hearing from both sides about why (or, apparently, why not) we should be considered employees. Some graduate assistants will be testifying at the hearings, but those who haven’t been tapped for that duty might be wondering how they can help. We’re glad you asked. Below are three simple ways to help CGE and the graduate unionization cause during the hearing. 

1. Attend Events

CGE will be hosting a number of events starting today (Labor Day) that we would welcome your attendance at. The first is the 3rd Annual CGE Labor Day Picnic, which is today from 1-4 PM on the Old Main lawn. This event is open to anyone and is a great way to first get (re)introduced to CGE while eating some delicious food. We’ll be providing sandwich fixings, plates, utensils, and sides, so all you need to do is bring your appetite! 

When the hearings start on Tuesday, September 5th, CGE will be hosting work-ins at both the Penn Stater Hotel (where the hearings are) and at Old Main. The Penn Stater work-ins will be 8 AM-5 PM on the days the hearing is in session (September 5th-8th and 11th-13th) and the Old Main work-ins will take place from 10 AM-4 PM on the same days. Bring your work, grading, or reading to either location to showcase graduate worker labor. The Penn Stater can be reached for no cost from the main campus via the Red Link, or you can carpool and take advantage of free on-site parking. Also, don’t forget to wear red to show solidarity!

2. Bring Friends and Co-Workers to the Events

We want to show the Penn State administration and PLRB just how much support CGE has, so bring a friend, an officemate, or a co-worker to the picnic or the work-ins – the more the merrier! We’ll also be having a special CGE Solidarity Demonstration on September 6th and 7th from 10 AM-2 PM at the Penn Stater. This is a great opportunity to get other graduate workers, undergrads, community organizers, faculty and staff, and anyone else supportive of the unionization cause involved, so don’t be afraid to invite people! CGE will have buttons and signs ready for those who come to the Solidarity Demonstration and remember that for the work-ins, anyone you bring isn’t being pulled away from work, they’re just being encouraged to work in a different location.

3. Share Your Solidarity

CGE will be posting regularly to Twitter and Facebook during the hearing, but we want to reach as many people as possible, so don’t hesitate to share and retweet CGE’s content or write your own posts or tweets talking about the hearings, CGE, or unionization. 

If you use Twitter, please use CGE’s official hearing hashtags for your tweets: #YesCGE, #WeAreWorkers, and #PennStateHearings.

Additionally, to spread the word across campus via the Penn State Campus Story, we are strongly encouraging the use of Snapchat. Getting on Penn State’s Snapchat story is a great way to reach the undergraduates and let them know what’s happening with their teachers. To submit a Snap to the Penn State Story, do the following: 

1. Capture a Snap (either a photo or video) in the app
2. Tap the arrow in the lower right-hand corner
3. Select to send the Snap to “Our Story” and then click the arrow in the lower right-hand screen.

Because the students who run the Penn State Snapchat story are pretty selective, we need as many people as possible sending in Snaps from different accounts. To get the Snapchat administrators’ attention, check out the following tips for making an effective Snap: 

1. Send in a video (photos on the Snapchat story are rare)
2. Include captions that explain what’s going on without using jargon (e.g. “PSU grad employees fight for their right to unionize!”)
3. Use a geofilter! Or throw in a dancing hot dog! The more Snapchat-y your Snaps are, the better.

CGE is an organization dedicated to, and dependent upon, group engagement and advocacy, meaning we genuinely can’t do this without your help! So please come out to the Penn Stater, Old Main, or Snap/post/tweet next week to show that you stand with CGE!

---

In solidarity, the Coalition of Graduate Employees

In February of this year, the Coalition of Graduate Employees (CGE) filed with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board (PLRB) to have a vote on unionization at Penn State. The filing was the culmination of a year’s work collecting authorization cards and the expectation was that once we had filed, the vote on unionization would happen within a few months. However, as we quickly learned, Penn State’s administration had other ideas. 

On April 6, 2017, while graduate employees were at a work-in at Old Main, Penn State’s administrators informed the PLRB that they not only opposed our unionization efforts, but also that they would be challenging our status as employees, even though we do visible work for the university, receive W-2 forms, and the PLRB ruled in 2000 that graduate assistants are employees. Nonetheless, next week, Penn State’s own challenge our standing as employees begins. Between September 5th and 13th, the PLRB will hear both Penn State’s arguments as well as those of graduate employees to determine, legally, whether Penn State grad workers have the right to unionize. 

Penn State recognizes the challenges in front of it. The PLRB has ruled in the past that graduate employees can form a union and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled last year that even graduate assistants at private universities have the right to unionize. Knowing this, the university stalled over the summer and pushed the hearing date back to allow for more preparation time and the wasting of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars on lawyers from the law firm Ballard Spahr in Philadelphia, whose salaries can be $600 per hour. This firm has a history of dealing with unionization efforts and promises that its lawyers “know how to help clients maintain a union-free environment.” 

Penn State’s administration has deemed it appropriate to spend an astronomical amount of money in an attempt to stall an entirely legal vote on unionization as well as engage in active anti-union practices, as evidenced by their distribution of anti-union propaganda to new graduate employees at orientation this year. The administration knows it’s in the wrong, but is fighting us tooth and nail because it cares more about its profit margins than the humans it employs to teach students, advance research, and enhance the school’s reputation.

The administration’s blocking of our right to vote on unionization must stop and hopefully will after the PLRB hearings, but right now we need you to make your voices heard. CGE will be organizing work-ins both at the Penn Stater hotel where the hearing will be and in Old Main between Tuesday, September 5th and Wednesday, September 13th. The work-ins at Old Main will run from 10 AM-4 PM and the Penn Stater work-ins will be 8 AM-5 PM daily. Join us at either location and stand with us in solidarity as we fight for our legal right to have a seat at the table where our futures as graduate employees are determined.

---

In solidarity, The Coalition of Graduate Employees
 

By now, most, if not all of us, are aware of the healthcare debacle that graduate workers have been dealing with for the past week and a half. Since the release of the information regarding our new health care policy, there has been substantial confusion about off-campus coverage, receiving proof of insurance cards, using the University Health Services (UHS) pharmacy, and a myriad of other issues. To clarify these issues, CGE has been releasing information and guides since August 10th. Here is what we have learned during the course of our research.

Emergency Add

The “emergency add” is the key to acquiring access to off-campus healthcare providers, both mental and physical. With an emergency add, graduate workers are added to the UnitedHealthcare plan before they normally would be (sometime between now and mid-October). You can request to be emergency added by calling UHS at 814-865-7467. We strongly recommend all graduate employees do this, regardless of whether or not they have an upcoming off-campus appointment, because this insurance is included in our compensation packages and we deserve to have access to it. This is an especially important step for international graduate workers, who must emergency add before September 5th to avoid a hold on their accounts as well as a late fee.

Once the emergency add call has been completed, wait 24 hours and go to United Health Group's Website. Once there, type in the school’s name (“The Pennsylvania State University – University Park”). After the web page redirects you, click “Login to My Account” in the upper right-hand corner of the screen and create an account. Upon creating your account, you’ll be able to access a digital version of your insurance card as well as order a physical copy. You can access your account within a day or two of getting emergency added even if you haven’t heard anything further from UHS.

Healthcare Services at UHS

As stated in The Graduate School’s Facebook post, UHS is going to hold all bills until October. This means that you will be able to utilize UHS and its pharmacy without an ID card until you receive your insurance cards in October (or sooner if you’ve done the emergency add). In order to use these services, tell UHS that you are a graduate assistant or fellow when you come in and do the same if you visit the pharmacy, though the procedure is more formal at the latter. To acquire prescriptions, you will have to sign a form confirming you are on an assistantship or fellowship and chosen to accept Penn State’s health care plan. You should NOT be asked to pay for these prescriptions out of pocket.

Non-UHS Services (Physical and Mental)

In order to see non-UHS providers, an emergency add is required, as you’ll need to bring proof of insurance, if just the policy number, to healthcare providers off campus. Regardless of what you have heard, neither mental nor physical healthcare providers are leaving the UnitedHealthcare system in droves, so you should be able to see your regular provider without issue if you have your proof of insurance and/or policy number. It’s always good to check with your provider to see if they accept UnitedHealthcare insurance (called United Behavioral Health or UBH for mental healthcare providers) though, so be sure to ask whether you’re covered under the new plan before you set up an appointment.

You can search to see if your mental healthcare provider is covered under the new insurance either via CAPS or through UnitedHealthcare’s website. You can also find local doctors, hospitals, laboratories, etc. covered by UnitedHealthcare here. Keep in mind though that because contract negotiations between UnitedHealthcare and certain physicians and therapists are still ongoing this list will likely change as the year progresses.

Dental (United Concordia) and vision (Highmark Blue Shield) insurance providers are remaining the same for the 2017-18 school year and, as far as we know, the change in insurance years (which will happen on September 1st) will have no effect on graduate employees.

Instructions for Enrolling

According to the email Penn State sent out to graduate employees on August 18th, the process for enrolling in the healthcare plan differs depending on your assistantship and citizenship status, so please read the following carefully.

• Domestic graduate assistants and graduate fellows: If you are only interested in single coverage, you need to take no further steps to get coverage (see below if you have dependents). You are automatically enrolled in the insurance plan as part of your compensation package, you just need to emergency add yourself into the system to get an insurance card before October. If you do not want insurance coverage through Penn State, you must opt out of the insurance by completing the declination form here before September 5, 2017.

• Domestic graduate assistants and graduate fellows with dependents: You are automatically enrolled in the plan because it’s part of your compensation package. However, if you want to add dependents to your plan, please go here. If you do not enroll your dependents, your insurance status will automatically be set to “single.”

• International graduate assistants and fellows: In order to get coverage, complete the steps below (this can be done before or after requesting an emergency add from UHS):

  1. Go here.

  2. Click “Waive Your School’s Insurance” on the right-hand side menu (second option below the “Student Tools” section). We understand that the wording is confusing, but by clicking “Waive” you are NOT forfeiting your access to Penn State’s student insurance plan.

  3. Scroll down on the page to click “Waive Now” and enter your the details for your Penn State insurance or an alternate health insurance plan if you’re not using the one Penn State offers (see below for what to enter to get the Penn State insurance plan).

  4. Yes to all waiver questions (again, NOT waiving the right to insurance).

  5. Enter your insurance information or that of the Penn State plan if you want Penn State’s insurance. If you have your own insurance, be sure to enter what’s on your insurance card here. If you’re accepting Penn State’s insurance, please enter what’s entered below

  • Company Name: UHCSR
  • Company Mailing Address: P.O. Box 809025, Dallas, TX 75380-9025
  • Member ID: 000
  • Group #: 2017-547-2
  • Policyholder Member ID#: 000
  • Insurance Plan Type: PPO

Are you a graduate assistant/fellow? Yes/No

You should see a confirmation page that looks like this:

Keep in mind that if you are declining Penn State’s health insurance or need to enroll dependents in your plan, that must be done here by September 5, 2017. Additionally, if international students have not submitted insurance information by this date, they will have a hold placed on their account and will have to pay a late fee of $50 or $100 (Penn State does not specify how the fee amount is determined).

If you have any questions, please feel free to direct them to CGE and we’ll do our best to provide answers. Even as the administration refuses to do its job and disseminate easy-to-understand information, CGE will continue working to spread information and lessen confusion amongst graduate employees during these difficult times.

---

In solidarity,

The Coalition of Graduate Employees