What is GEO?
GEO, stands for the Graduate Employment Organization, the union of Graduate Employees at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. GEO was founded in 1991 and is affiliated with UAW (the United Auto Workers) local 2322. They had lead several successful strikes in order to secure better working conditions and benefits, particularly in the early 1990’s as the first began to organize. According to their website, GEO represents “teaching assistants, teaching associates, research assistants, project assistants, assistant resident directors, graduate interns, fellows, and trainees” and fights for “a safe and equitable workplace.”
What are they doing today?
After waning in the early 2000’s GEO has reemerged as a force to fight for graduate students at UMass today.The major issues they have faced in recent years include pay, healthcare, class sizes, and housing. The later is particularly potent as, for many graduate students, the university is not only an employer, but also a landlord, making them particularly vulnerable. Graduate students with children or who are international students are more likely to be housed by the university, limiting their options for non-university housing. In Fall of 2019, UMass announced they were going to be demolishing family graduate student housing to build luxury undergraduate housing. GEO rallied to push back on this plan, however, the fate of this remains uncertain with the corona virus pandemic delaying normal operations. GEO is still engaging in their current regular round of contract negotiations despite the pandemic, and continues to fight for better treatment during this time.
Why are UMass graduate workers represented by an autoworkers union?
Just as neoliberalization struck universities, it too hit other industries. American manufacturing declined significantly, with free trade agreements allowing large corporations to move across borders, and the rise of lean production, that is laying people off and having the remaining workers perform more labor for equivalent pay raise. This meant that there were fewer autoworkers to pay dues into the once prosperous UAW. Thus, the UAW had national infrastructure and experienced local organizations, and graduate workers represented a recently immiserated constituency that could shore up declining dues. This shift away from having a specific union organize a specific industry to representing any industry is known as general unionism.
To see more of GEO’s history, visit the following galleries: