Protect our raise!
Highlights~
Ink has barely dried on our Raise Agreement, and Brown is already trying to divide us against each other by slashing raises for grads in CS and DEEPS
Brown communicates false account of our raise negotiations to departmental administrators
GLO is ready to fight Brown’s bad faith move - RSVP to our Rally to protect our raise Wednesday April 6th at 12pm on the Main Green!
Dear GLO Members,
The ink is barely dry on our ratified raise agreement, and admin is already trying to dodge their legal responsibility to honor it. Brown is slashing $3,000 of our raise in departments that provide top-ups above the base stipend, specifically Computer Science and the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences. For affected grads, this takes their raises beneath the rate of inflation, effectively a pay cut. This is not what we agreed to in bargaining. Join us next Wednesday at noon for a rally on the main green to protect our raise!
Grads have already made important financial decisions based on GLO’s successful raise campaign, which, again, Brown is legally obligated to honor. Brown approved the raise to base stipends for all grad workers. Now it appears that admin is refusing to provide the necessary funds to departments to uphold their end of the bargain, effectively eating into grads’ raises by slashing top-ups. This is unacceptable. Brown cannot decide grads’ compensation outside of bargaining.
After admin refused to allow representatives from The Brown Daily Herald to observe GLO’s open bargaining sessions during the recent raise campaign, Brown is falsifying their account of bargaining in communications with graduate departments. Specifically, Brown claims to have made it “very clear” to GLO that departments with stipend top-ups would be forced to reduce or eliminate those top-ups to accommodate our raise. This is simply false, as grads who attended the bargaining sessions know. Brown University is our employer: it’s Brown’s job to honor their agreement with GLO, not individual departments’.
Admin’s latest move is a transparent attempt to sow division amongst grads, right after we’ve shown what our collective power can do: winning a historic effective raise of 12.9% to the base stipend. Brown wants to convince us that pay equity and cross-departmental solidarity is bad for STEM, and that our union will create tension between grads and their departments. Let’s show them what solidarity looks like by protecting our raise for ALL grads! RSVP to our emergency rally next Wednesday, April 6th at 12pm outside University Hall on the Main Green!
In Solidarity,
Julia Huggins, MCM, on behalf of GLO’s Communications Committee
Carin Papendorp, Neuroscience, GLO Coordinator for Organizing
