May 1, 2026: Grad workers pass crucial demands, HR returns them fully crossed out

Welcome back to the podcast! During our brief hiatus in podcasting, negotiations with Academic HR at the University of Michigan continued apace, with workers in the Graduate Employees' Organization (GEO) passing over transformative contract demands based on our actual experiences and conditions working at this university.Instead of passing back reasonable counteroffers, HR has chosen to cross out and strike out entire proposals:Rather than fund Doctor of Musical Arts students on a 12-month contract like all other doctoral students at U-M, HR struck out our entire proposal.Rather than provide graduate students with adequate on-campus child care facilities and capacity, where many families are currently paying tens of thousands of dollars per year for off-campus services, HR struck out our entire proposalRather than provide reasonable academic freedom protections in the classroom for graduate student instructors, HR struck out our entire proposal.Since our last episode, 2,200 Graduate Student Research Assistants (GSRAs) elected to join GEO with a 92% majority. We also organized to support (and free!) our coworker in ICE detention due to a series of repeated failures by the University of Michigan. And, we rallied for International Workers' Day before packing the bargaining room on Friday!-----Hear from U-M grad workers Gala, Shreya, and Anja about the latest news from the bargaining room, and come back soon for updates from our next session on Friday, May 15.Stay tuned for more updates!Read our bargaining bulletins: https://www.geo3550.org/news/bargaining/Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/geo_3550/Visit our website: https://www.geo3550.orgJoin our allies mailing list: https://www.geo3550.org/join/alliesDonate to the Worker Solidarity Fund: https://bit.ly/GEOWorkerSolidarity