Dear GAs,

On Thursday (9/9/2021) GAs voted online on the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) recently negotiated by GAU’s leadership and USF. The contract was approved with 236 votes in favor and 3 against. The CBA is our graduate assistant labor/employee contract with USF. Due to the pandemic, our contract wins this year were fairly limited: the extension preserves minimum stipends at the same levels from the 2019-2020 academic year, increases the amount that USF pays for each GA’s health insurance premiums (which will cause the out of pocket expense for GAs to remain at $159 per year), and the implementation of a Covid bonus for eligible GAs.

This CBA also implements some minor contract language changes (including a provision that all appointments should have the same start/end dates as faculty appointments, preventing departments from stealthily cutting GAs’ pay by shortening their appointments). We would have greatly preferred to win stipend increases and fully subsidized healthcare but, given the worldwide financial uncertainty, we believe that even treading water and living to fight another day is a win.

For a complete comparison of the changes this CBA implements, the initialed red-line copy (which details the insertions, deletions, and changes compared to the existing CBA) can be found at https://www.usfgau.org/assets/GAU_CBA_with_Track_Changes_2021_2022.pdf. A clean copy, showing the what the new CBA looks like after the changes, will be uploaded shortly. The previous contract, which expired on June 30th, 2021, can be found at https://www.usfgau.org/assets/2017-2020-CBA-1.pdf, and the CBA MOU signed last year can be found at https://www.usfgau.org/assets/GAU_MOU_8-13-2020_signed.pdf.

Online voting procedure:

• All graduate assistants, regardless of GAU membership, were eligible to vote.
• The ratification vote was held via zoom.
• Due to the health risk of an in-person election, voting will be conducted virtually via Helios Voting, which provides encrypted and verifiable online elections. All ballots are anonymous. This virtual election will be conducted in accordance with a variance from usual procedure, as granted by PERC.