Acting Provost Frances Bronet communicated with campus today about an updated offer to the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation in regard to the group’s request for paid leave. The bargaining teams have continued talks in mediation and may meet again next week.

The revised contract provision would guarantee that all GTFs who need to take up to two weeks off due to a family or major medical situation would be able to flex their hours and would still receive full salaries, tuition and fee waivers, and health insurance coverage for their family.

Individuals would have the ability to work with his or her department and the Graduate School to plan if a schedule changes can be accommodated over the duration of the contract. Complete details are available here.

“As this offer demonstrates, we do not want our ongoing negotiations to negatively impact anyone, especially our students,” Bronet said in the email.

This new flex time proposal is an important complement to an already substantial package. This package also includes:

• A nine percent pay increase, over two years, on minimum graduate student salaries. This is the largest negotiated pay increase since 2006;
• Full tuition waivers;
• Significantly reduced fees (a GTF pays only $61 per term); and
• Full family health, vision, and dental coverage with the university paying 95 percent of the premium. This is by far the best healthcare package for graduate student teachers in Oregon and across comparable AAU institutions.

For complete details of the current offer, please visit http://provost.uoregon.edu/gtff-negotiation.