Our Spring General Membership Meeting (and 2018-19 elections) will be on Thursday, March 29 from 4:30-6:30.
Please RSVP on our Facebook event page so we can get a good idea about the attendance for food and drinks.
Spring Social 2018 Friday Feb 16 at Grasslands: 6-8pm
Please register at our Facebook event page so we can get an accurate idea of how many people will be there. We look forward to seeing you!
Update on Dependent Coverage for GAs
GAU representatives are continuing to work toward restoring dependent coverage after the university unilaterally cut this benefit for the 2017-18 academic year.
GAU and FSU representatives formed a committee to solicit proposals for dependent coverage that met on December 15, 2017. FSU distributed an invitation to negotiate to healthcare providers on December 18, 2017, with proposals due January 23, 2018. Unfortunately, FSU reported on February 1 that it received no proposals.
GAU is talking with FSU about how to move forward. We are also discussing a proposal for contract changes that would require FSU to offer a dependent coverage option.
Next Department Rep Meeting is Nov 16
Our next department representative meeting will be on November 16 from 5-7pm at Oglesby Student Union Room 311B.
If you are interested in becoming a department rep, this would also be a fantastic meeting for you to attend.
For this meeting, we will discuss the contract bargaining process with our bargaining chair Clancy McGilligan. This is a complex process that is not only important to every Graduate Assistant (GA) on campus, but also has ramifications for incoming graduate students as well. The more help we have with this, the better it is for all the GAs at FSU. Last meeting, we discussed grievances and had a lot of productive conversation. We hope to get even more great discussion going on this time too.
If you are interested in becoming a new Department Representative and are curious about what that entails, it means that you will:
1) attend monthly training sessions (food is provided!)
2) represent your department to GAU and GAU to your department;
3) recruit and give orientation presentations for your department;
4) experience a rewarding feeling from representing the union and hero status for helping out your fellow graduate students.
If you plan to attend, please RSVP on the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/
2017-2018 Bargaining Process Summary
GAU met regularly with university representatives from June to August to negotiate a new contract. As part of 
negotiations, we argued for better pay and other benefits after discussing strategies to obtain the best possible contract. During bargaining sessions, we presented research on benefits at comparable educational institutions in and out of Florida. We ran quantitative analyses of university offers to determine their impact. We also carefully discussed each offer. In addition, while negotiations were ongoing, we distributed a press release to media organizations about our efforts. As a result, the following story ran on WFSU: http://news.wfsu.org/ .
We are pleased to report that, on Sep. 21 and 22, Graduate Assistants voted unanimously to approve the 2017-18 contract changes.