ANN ARBOR—Negotiations between the University of Michigan bargaining team and representatives of the Graduate Employees Organization, which represents about 1,700 graduate student instructors, broke down early this morning (March 12).

University officials expressed disappointment and frustration over last night’s bargaining session. “We offered a number of proposals which were responsive to all of the union’s concerns and which we were led to believe would be accepted by the union,” said U-M Provost Nancy Cantor. “However, as we moved closer to their position, their negotiators began to ask for even more concessions and to place additional items on the table which had not been part of recent discussions.”

Currently, GSIs earn an average hourly wage of $16.34 per hour in addition to a tuition waiver worth up to $10,000 per term plus full health insurance coverage. These salary rates and benefits are the highest among peer institutions.

Two weeks ago, GEO announced three issues remaining to be worked out as part of the contract negotiations, which have been ongoing since Oct. 21. The issues were international graduate student training, calculation of the appointment fraction for graduate student instructors, and salary increases.

Last night the University offered:

These proposals would cost the University at least an additional $3.4 million, a 23.5 percent increase, over the previous three-year contract.

In response to these offers, the union negotiators came back with a salary request of 13 percent over three years despite earlier indications they would accept 10 percent; reduction of the 50-percent appointment work hours to 16.5-21 hours; and a new demand, waiving of all student fees for GSIs at appointment fractions of 20 percent or less.

Cantor said these new proposals, in additional to exhibiting a lack of good faith, would be an unacceptable financial burden for the University’s General Fund, which comes from student tuition dollars, state funding and indirect cost recovery from federally funded research. “We believe we’ve offered an extremely generous package that is responsive to all the issues raised over the many months of negotiating,” she said. “At a time when concerns are high over tuition increases and when state funding may be tightening, we can’t in good conscience support the demands that were issued in the final hours of bargaining early this morning.”

Cantor and Dan Gamble, the University’s chief labor negotiator, said the University has once again asked for mediation. “Mediation is the only option likely to bring about progress at the stage of impasse we have arrived at,” Gamble said.